Present Tense
by ProfessorSpork
Summary: All Angel wants is for Connor to have a nice, normal first Christmas. All he gets? Is a month of insanity. December 31st: 'Happy to have an excuse to get as far away from Cordelia Chase and his feelings as possible, Angel took the baby and ran.'
1. December 1st

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I'm just playing with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: Once upon a time, I had a plot bunny. "Wouldn't it be nice," thought I, "to spend Christmas with the folks at Angel Investigations." And then the bunny became two bunnies, and then the bunnies multiplied—as bunnies are wont to do.

Here's how this is going to work: Every day, I am going to post a chapter. Each chapter represents a day on the calendar, documenting the hypothetical events of December 2001 (season three) of the Angelverse. It's intended to be entirely canon-compliant, taking place between the episodes "Dad" and "Birthday."

And without further ado… December 1st:

* * *

"Bum bum!" boomed a strong baritone.

"Ching-a ching!" added a light soprano.

"Bum bum!"

"Ching-a ching!"

Lorne and Fred, he realized belatedly.

Lorne and Fred were _singing._

From his bed, Angel groaned and put his pillow over his head in a vain attempt to muffle the impromptu rendition of 'Up on the Housetop,' wondering how long he could plausibly hide in his room. He should have been up hours ago, but Connor had had an uncharacteristically colicky night, which had led Angel to get a sadly not uncharacteristically small amount of sleep, and really, was a little peace and quiet too much to ask for? In the spirit of the season and all?

"Knock knock, Angelcakes! Rise and shine!" Lorne called from the other side of the door.

Apparently not.

He did his best to seem chipper when he opened the door for them, rubbing at his sleep-flattened hair. "Good, uh. Good morning?"

"Morning!" Fred chirped as she slipped past him, rushing to Connor's bassinet. "How's my boy?"

"Sleeping!" Angel sputtered, clawing after her with not even the slightest hint of desperation in his voice. Nope. "We should probably let him be for a while longer."

Her face fell.

"…you want to look after him while I check on things downstairs?"

And lit up again. "Can I?"

It probably said a great deal about his (perfectly normal and healthy) paranoia about leaving Connor with other people that she was so surprised.

He decided not to care.

"I didn't mean to oversleep, and I don't want to leave him alone. Just bring him down when he wakes up, I guess."

"You bet!" she enthused, already pulling over a chair.

"You're gonna love what we've done to the place," Lorne assured him as they made their way to the lobby. "We've spent the whole morning—"

Angel stopped abruptly when they hit the top of the landing.

"—decorating."

Oh, god.

Angel hadn't exactly had high hopes for the day, considering he'd been caroled awake, but he still hadn't expected to see Gunn holding a ladder (where had they even gotten that thing?) for Wesley while he hung tinsel off the balcony banister.

"I… what?" he finally managed to say.

Gunn shrugged. "Don't look at me, man. I just work here."

"Cordelia's idea?"

Wesley and Gunn wisely chose not to reply.

"Where is she?" he asked with a resigned sigh.

Another shrug.

Eventually, he hoped, he would stop being surprised when these things happened.

-

He found her in the basement, stringing lights.

"Before you say anything," she announced, cutting him off before he'd even started—her back was to him, but he'd long stopped questioning her ability to know he was there—"I am not doing this for you. I am doing this for Connor, because he deserves a nice, happy first Christmas."

She turned around and gave him one of her 'go on, challenge me. I dare you' looks, and all his protests about maintaining a serious work atmosphere disappeared.

"Cordelia, it's only barely December," his excuse sounded weak even to him, "and this is our training room. Connor's never down here."

"Like it would kill you to have a bit of cheer," she snorted, dismissive. "This whole building is seriously lacking in festive spirit. And if Connor's going to be well-adjusted, then he's going to need a dad who isn't a festering black hole of Scrooge-y bitterness. Luckily for you, bringing a little brightness and color into your life? Pretty much my job."

It was an off-handed comment, but it caught in his chest and made him want to…

If their roles were reversed, she would've just grinned and called him a dork and that would be that. But he'd never really mastered the art of playful banter, and so he was forced to settle with giving her his best effort a grateful smile. He wasn't entirely sure what one looked like, but hoped she'd at least recognize the attempt.

"Angel?"

Well, he'd tried. "Right. Yes. That's why I hired you."

"And that's another thing," she added as she crossed the room, abandoning her project for the time being. "You're not the boss anymore; Wesley is. And _he _thought it was a great idea."

"Really? Those were his exact words?"

"He probably also called me a genius."

"One of these days," he chuckled as he held the basement door open for her, "you'll be the death of me."

And she understood implicitly, passing by, that he meant the exact opposite.

* * *

A/N That's it for now. See you tomorrow, with EXCITING BOARD GAMES.


	2. December 2nd

Disclaimer: They aren't mine; I'm just playing.

* * *

"Triple word score!"

Charles Gunn stifled a groan. He had hoped he'd spend the evening taking out a vampire nest, or thwarting the initiation ceremony of a demon cult or, frankly, doing _anything else in the world_ but sitting around, getting his ass kicked in Scrabble by a genius. He dared a glance at the board as Fred racked up an unimaginable number of points for scrawling "quasar" through the A in his (highly respectable) "ran."

"Quasar?" he repeated dubiously. "Come on. Don't mess with me. That's not a word." She smiled apologetically, and he turned to yell to the corner office. "Wesley, is that a word?"

"Unfortunately, it is," Wesley called back from his desk in a voice that was aiming for sympathy but came out much more like amused pride. "It's an astronomical phenomenon—a star, rather like a pulsar. Funnily enough, I read recently that—"

Gunn held up a hand. "Actually? I'm good."

"Cheer up, Charles; it could be worse." Fred's horn-rimmed glasses, which she'd put on at the start of the game 'because they helped her think,' were horribly askew.

He grinned at her. "Oh yeah? How?"

"Well, y'all could be out killing demons or something."

"Right," he coughed guiltily, clearing his throat, "that would be… much worse."

They smiled at each other; all things considered, he supposed, there were worse ways he could be spending his time.

"It's your turn," she reminded him gently.

He frowned, looking back down at his tiles. Feeling her eyes on him, he hammed it up as he studied the board, sticking his tongue out in mock concentration.

She giggled; the sounds of pages turning in Wesley's office grew conspicuously louder.

With meticulous precision, he placed down B, G, S through her earlier "figment" (the "fig," at least, had been his) to make "begs."

"Seven points!" she announced, as if it were an accomplishment.

He groaned again. "This is not my game. You go ahead with your next turn—I'll be right back."

He got up gracelessly from the floor and tried not to look as though he were fleeing to Wesley's office.

"Whatcha up to?" he asked in a voice not entirely devoid of desperation.

Wesley jumped, startled at the interruption, causing his glasses to slide down his nose. "Just a bit of research, really. I presume you need further Scrabble assistance?"

"Um, actually I was wondering how things were going in here." _Oh god, I am so bored. Please, please rescue me._

A pause. "Really?"

"Yeah, I was just… curious. What're you working on?"

Wesley couldn't remember the last time anyone had paid attention to his studies when their lives were not at stake. He tried not to sound too excited as he explained, "Well, I've heard rumours that a clan of Brys'gryth demons have migrated into the Valley; I'm investigating their usual habits. Mating, sleep schedule, that sort of thing."

Demons could be cool. "Demons, huh? Well, what have you found so far? We gonna have to throw down?"

"Highly unlikely. I take care of these sorts of things all the time—drifters who come to Los Angeles more by chance than ill will. Brys'gryth demons are herbivores, but they're known to be attracted to populated areas. I'll probably head out there later this week and ask them to move on." Off Gunn's disappointed look, he added, "Er, I may suggest better breeding grounds?"

"Oh. So, we're not killing them?"

"Well, they haven't really done anything. I'm just concerned about them being so visible. Children are known to play in the woods they've settled in, and Brys'gryth are a bit…" Rather than trying to explain, Wesley merely held up the volume he'd been studying, which included an etching of what Gunn assumed was a Brys'gryth demon—a five-legged spindly looking thing that reminded him simultaneously of a gerbil and a grasshopper.

"Nasty."

"Indeed."

"Charles?" called Fred from the other room.

"Oh, shoot. Guess it's my turn. Good luck with the, uh," Gunn waved his hand vaguely at the pile of books on Wesley's desk, "thing."

Wesley merely rolled his eyes.

"So where do we stand?" Gunn asked, taking his seat on the floor once again.

Fred scribbled furiously on a notepad. "Well you have 62 points in total, and I just put down 'wavy' which brings me to…" more scribbling, "…147." She beamed at him. "Your move!"

He groaned.

* * *

A/N I've decided to take Jane Espenson's advice and use the British spellings of words when I write Wesley's dialogue, in order to semi-invoke his accent. Hence my use of "rumour" above.

Tomorrow, the Powers That Be may intervene. Or maybe they won't. You can never tell with those guys.

Reviews and suggestions always welcome!


	3. December 3rd

Disclaimer: Not mine.

* * *

"I can't do this," Angel announced over lunch, apropos of nothing. "I'm gonna be a terrible father."

It was their afternoon ritual. She, at her computer, eating a sandwich or a salad. He, sitting atop the front desk, fretting.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, are you Raging Insecurity Guy today? It would make my life a lot easier if you'd give me clues every morning, so I can prepare in advance."

Angel continued on as if she hadn't spoken. "I mean, sure, it's all fine now. He's a baby. He doesn't know any better. But he's gonna learn to talk and he'll realize what I am and then he'll hate me."

"Don't be silly, Papa Bear. You can play creature of the night all you want; we all know you're a big ol' softie."

"Yeah, but… you don't think I'm, I dunno… square?"

Her mouth twitched as she fought desperately to keep a straight face. "Angel, you couldn't be any squarer if you were a parallelogram with four ninety degree angles and sides of equal length."

He blinked at her, dismayed. "Geometry jokes? Really?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mock your—" her breath hitches and he knows that look, he's already on his feet and running, "—pain."

"Cordy!"

She dropped out of the chair as her body seized, the room suddenly spinning in mad, dizzying lights and sounds as a thousand hot knives lodged themselves behind her eyes. _Snakes, hundreds of them, slithering beneath the floorboards and under her skin, and she doesn't think their eyes are supposed to glow like that—_

Blood pounded in her ears so hard it felt like her brains were leaking out, and she whimpered, trying desperately to make sense of the images flooding her brain through the agony and disorientation.

"Shhh, Cordelia…"

She knew that voice. It was a good voice. But she could barely hear it over _laughter, a family on a hike, and a blonde little boy so curious about that abandoned cabin—_

Bile rose in her throat as she fought her way back to reality. Something cool brushed back her bangs, wiping away some of the confusion but none of the throbbing pain…

Angel. The voice had been Angel, and the cool hand was Angel's, pressing gently against her forehead.

"I'm—I'm fine," she croaked, barely able to form the words with dry lips, eyes still screwed shut.

"We heard the noise—"  
"What did you see?"  
"Is Cordy okay?"

The room felt too bright; she kept her eyes closed as she answered Wesley.

"Snakes. Of the supernatural variety. Cabin on a hiking trail. I couldn't tell… somewhere in the Angeles National Forest, probably by the San Gabriel River."

Angel looked up at Wesley helplessly. "Is that far?"

"Only about an hour's drive, in traffic. But locating our actual destination with nothing to go on could take time. Can you remember anything else? Distinguishing landmarks?"

She shook her head. Her skin crawled with the lingering sensation of serpentine bodies, pressed flush against one another.

"Is anyone in immediate danger?"

"A family. You can make it if you hurry. The sun was setting. Or, will be setting." She opened her eyes. "They have a little boy…"

And Angel was up, already halfway to the weapons cabinet. Cordelia opened her mouth to protest, but Gunn beat her to it. "Hold up; she said setting, not set. Last thing we need is you charbroiling for this kid."

He took out a sword and they knew arguing would be pointless—Angel was not in the business, these days, of abandoning little boys.

Wesley's mouth was set in a thin line. "I'll drive."

The evening was a quiet one at the Hyperion: Cordelia torn between her desire to escape home to Dennis and painkillers and a bubble bath, and her anxiety over the mission; Fred whipped into a frenzy around 9 when a frantic cell phone call from Wesley indicated that they'd need demon venom antidote for Gunn.

The boys would not return until 3 the next morning.

* * *

A/N I know, it's kind of pointless to do the cliffhanger thing in a fic where no one is in any actual danger, because it takes place mid-series. Still, it's fun.

Tomorrow: the fallout.


	4. December 4th

Disclaimer: None of them are mine.

* * *

Wesley came in bleeding but whole, half carrying Gunn, half using him as a crutch. Gunn himself was much worse for the wear: delirious with fever, ankle swollen to three times its usual size.

"Did you…?" Cordy trailed off, catching Wesley as he handed Gunn off to Lorne and Fred.

"The boy is fine," he murmured grimly as she helped him to the sofa.

"Where's Angel?"

"Dropping him off at the station. The police will have questions, and Angel was in the best shape to answer them without arousing suspicion."

With a cold shock, she realized that no, he hadn't mentioned saving the parents.

She bandaged his wounds in silence and went home before Angel got back, wanting nothing more than a few hours of sleep and a second chance to start the day.

-

"He's still not back?"

Wesley did not bother to look up from his book. "Good morning to you too, Cordelia. I'm fine, thank you for asking."

"Sorry. How's your arm?"

His mouth twitched. "Better. He returned several hours ago and promptly retreated to his room. I was hoping you would be able to coax him out."

She went to leave but thought better of it, turning on her heel. "Gunn?"

"Still unconscious," Lorne answered for him, coming down the stairs. "Fred is with him now. We've been able to bring down the fever, but he's clearly still in pain. Any luck?"

Wesley closed the book he'd been reading with a sigh. "Not really. The best I've found was a passage on the proper burial of an infected victim. Which is an outcome I'd like to avoid."

Cordy looked from Lorne to Wesley. "Should I stay and do the research thing, instead? Because I am also all for Gunn not dying."

"Better to deal with Angel, before he gets any worse," Wesley decided, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Hopefully, this won't take all day."

-

"Go away, Cordelia," Angel muttered half-heartedly as she entered his room without knocking. His back was to her as he hunched over Connor's bassinet.

Her eyes narrowed. "You're brooding."

"I'm not brooding; I just want to be left alone for a little while."

"You're brooding," she reaffirmed, not even looking at him as she deftly moved past him to sit on his bed.

And maybe he was brooding, a little. "I just… that little boy… his life is over. He's gonna wake up every night crying for parents who aren't there, and if there's anyone there to comfort him—which is a big if—they can never understand what he's been through."

"I know," she murmured, but he was already off in his own world.

"It's horrible. The world is a horrible place. A world that needs Champions has no place for kids, when there's danger at every corner and sometimes people you're expecting never come home, or if they do they're different, and they're dead inside…"

"It's okay," she interrupted quickly, nervous about how close to Buffy territory he was straying. "It'll be okay, Angel. You can't worry about that right now."

"How can't I? How can you say that? I remember the day he was born. People want to kill my son. People with followers, and power, and—I never asked for this, Cordelia, I never wanted this!"

"I know, I haven't forgotten. There's nothing you can do about it now. Just take it easy. Breathe," she soothed, realizing belatedly that he couldn't. Her slip-up went unnoticed, however, as he was too deeply caught in his panic attack to listen.

"I didn't want a son, didn't want to have anyone depending on me, and now I could die and he'd be all alone and—"

"Angel!"

"And _you_," he railed, finally turning around to face her, "you started this, you came into my life and you make it all seem so easy, with your shanshu and your kye-rumption and…"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," she said, because she had to say _something _and she wasn't at all sure what she was apologizing for, and she'd never seen him like this, not really.

"Why me? Why'd he have to get me? Why does this have to be his life? Just… _why_?" He blinked, and realized he was holding back tears. He turned away again, fiercely, looking at Connor through squinted eyes. "There's a reason vampires aren't allowed to do this. No one… no child should have a monster for a parent."

She got up from the bed and stood next to him, looking down at the baby who had, somehow, managed to stay asleep through all that. And she understood. _Let him be something else; let him be whatever he wants. Let him be a hockey player, or a teacher, or a chef. Let him worry about scraped knees and not sword wounds; let him be anything, anything at all but this. _

"He doesn't have a monster, Angel. He has you."

Silence.

This, she decided, merited the big guns.

"Angel, I'm going to give you a hug," she warned, "And I need you to not have a wiggins, and remember that you're my best friend, and I love you."

She could count on one hand the number of times she had used that phrase to his face; it was one of her few reliable secret weapons. (Though really, it was a little silly for the phrase "best friend" to evoke such a brilliant smile so consistently from anyone over the age of eight.)

But this time it was all he could do to mumble "okay," holding perfectly still as she hooked her arms under his and squeezed. The part of him that had spent a hundred years shunning affection and all things human was screaming for him to pull away, but Cordy's words were echoing in his head.

Best friend. Love. Words he had no right to, words that were never meant to be directed at creatures like him.

It hurt. It always hurt, knowing he would never have a family, or even the pieces of one; being tempted by Buffy and the disaster that had resulted had taught that lesson painfully well. But to have it all just _handed_ to him, when he'd finally found a little peace without it… it was somehow worse. Connor, already a miracle, was day by day turning Angel's makeshift little family into a real one. It would be so easy to just accept that and be happy. Too easy, in fact. And letting his guard down now, with Cordelia's head against his chest, seemed like the most dangerous thing in the world.

But then… if he were being perfectly honest with himself, Angel's guard had been dropped long before Cordy touched him. They'd been working together for years now, and somewhere in that first winter without Doyle, he'd found himself going to her for advice, looking to her for comfort. Cordelia was the very definition of straightforward. She meant what she said, and she said what she meant, and she had never, not once, been anything but completely honest with him.

Figuring it was only fair to return the favor, he finally relaxed and returned the embrace.

"That's what makes this so awful, Cordelia. I… I've never had a… anything like this before, and it would be hard enough if it were just you. But there's Wesley, and Gunn, and Fred, and even Lorne, now. And I thought I could handle that. But now I have Connor, and it terrifies me. _He _terrifies me. I'm scared to love him, because looking at him makes me so happy sometimes, I forget myself. I'm scared not to love him, that I won't be good enough and he'll grow up… broken. I'm scared of becoming my father. I'm scared to be in the same room with him, and I'm scared every time I leave him alone. I make a living fighting demons, and one of these days, I may not come home."

_I make a living fighting demons, but I can't face mine._

She looked up at him. "Angel…"

"I remember what you said, the day he was born. I know you think I wasn't listening, but I heard you. How I can't be everything for him. I _know _that. And that's the scariest thing of all. I killed my family, and a person who does that doesn't deserve another. But even though I never did anything to deserve him, and he certainly doesn't deserve me… I'm all he has. And I can't do wrong by him. Not ever. I know what it's like, to be alone. I have friends now, but I've never… it's not the same. I've never had anyone who was really mine. My blood. My family. Connor's my only chance, and if something happens to me, then he'll be just as alone as I was."

"You stupid idiot," she said affectionately.

That, he wasn't expecting. "Huh?"

"What, you think that if something happens to you, we're just gonna leave Connor out in the cold? 'Having friends isn't the same as having family.' Bullshit. You think I don't love that little boy just as much as you do? That Wesley doesn't, or Fred, or Gunn? Angel, we were there. We watched him be born. And as long anyone in this building is drawing breath, your son will _never _be alone." She considered her statement for a second, then amended, "Excepting you, of course."

"Cordelia…" he murmured, because the only word that seemed to make sense to him was her name.

"I will buy him presents every birthday and Christmas," she vowed, "despite how close they are, because I know for myself how annoying and cop-outy that is. I will be his shoulder to cry on when he doesn't want his daddy to know he cries. I will give him advice, whether he asks for it or not, and I will tease him mercilessly on his choices in everything from clothes to girls, when he's old enough. You think he doesn't have a family? Tough. I don't need your permission."

And he didn't have anything to say to that, so he just hugged her close again. They descended into a comfortable silence, until—

"So… that was a fun little nervous breakdown you just had."

"Right, sure, I'm very proud," he muttered.

Angel had always thought that after an emotional catharsis one was supposed to feel cleansed, or drained, or some other thing normally associated with household cleaning products. He didn't particularly feel either; just a little headachy, not to mention embarrassed with himself.

"So… you okay?"

"Yeah," he said into her hair. "Yeah, I'm okay."

* * *

A/N Okay, yes, so this chapter is twice as long as any of the others. What can I say? I adore Angel and Cordy. And frankly, I couldn't pick anything I wanted to cut.

Tomorrow: baking disaster!


	5. December 5th

Disclaimer: They all belong to Mutant Enemy.

* * *

Gunn awoke with a start.

That was his first mistake.

Deciding that waking up had been a bad idea, he searched for a word which could sum up his feelings towards the world at present. The only thing that came to mind was "GRRRRRNNNNNNNNUUUUUHHHHHH," which was certainly accurate, even if it did fall somewhat short of articulate.

Fred stuck her head in his room. "Charles? Was that you?"

He did his best to sit up. He wanted to say: "Yeah, that was me. What happened?"

He managed to get out: "Mhmmm. Buh?"

She came in and sat on the bed next to him. "Alright if I join you?"

He nodded.

"You gave us all a right scare, y'know. Can you remember what happened?"

He thought. "Thnake?" he inquired, cringing at his sudden lisp.

She gave him a small smile. "Sorry 'bout that. The venom seems to have had a bit of a numbing effect, so don't expect to talk real good any time soon. But on the bright side, you're not dead!"

She interpreted his alarmed look to mean "That was an option?!"

"Well," she answered his unasked question, "we weren't really sure _what _was gonna happen to you. You've been asleep for almost two days. But Wesley finally identified the demon that got you, and then he and I were able to whip up a complete cure. And now you're awake! You hungry?"

He hadn't been until she'd asked, but his stomach growled at the mention of food. She laughed.

"I'll see if I can't rustle something up for you. Feel better, Charles; I'll be back soon."

-

"Angel, help! The batter is attacking me!"

There were a number of things wrong with that sentence, not the least of which being that Fred wasn't allowed in the kitchen unattended. Wesley was off and running at the sound of her distressed voice; Angel took a moment to share a baffled look with Cordelia before chasing after.

They found Fred standing a good ten feet away from the electric mixer, near tears. She was splattered head to toe in batter; her glasses, fogged over with flour and wet egg, began to slip down her nose.

"Fred, what on earth…?"

Her lower lip trembled. "Well, I just felt so bad about Charles getting hurt, and he said he was hungry, so I thought maybe I would make him soup. But we hardly had anything down here, but I saw we had the fixins for cookies, but then when I turned on the mixer…"

Wesley was investigating the mixer in question. "Well no wonder. This kitchen is a hotel facility. All the appliances are built to accommodate bulk batches."

"I'm sorry, guys. I didn't mean to make a fuss; I was just trying to make Charles feel better."

Wesley gave her an indulgent smile. "I know, Fred, don't worry about it. We'll simply—"

"Whisk!" Angel announced cheerfully.

"…Pardon?"

Angel turned around from where he'd been rummaging in the cabinets. "I found a whisk. If there's still enough ingredients left, we could try another batch."

Fred's smile lit up the whole room. "D'you mean it?"

Angel couldn't help but smile back as he reached over and pushed her glasses back up. "Why not?"

-

"You know, if I didn't know any better," Wesley chuckled, leaning over to speak to Angel in low, conspiratorial tones as they cleaned the dishes, "I would say you were enjoying yourself."

Angel bit down on a smile. "Don't tell anyone—it would ruin my image."

And it was all Wesley could do but laugh, then, because that was the miracle of Fred. He could hardly believe, sometimes, the changes that had taken place in Angel since he'd come to L.A. The changes that had taken place within himself, as well. And it was all to do with the small family they'd managed to forge.

Most of the credit, he knew, went to Cordelia—occasionally tactless and always sarcastic, but one of the best people he'd ever met. It hadn't taken long for him to care for her deeply, as a sister. Then Gunn, whom he'd started off slightly scared of but learned to see as the best friend he'd never had.

But then, there was Fred, who had almost literally fallen from the sky and into his world. Never, in Wesley's entire life, had he ever encountered a person so incredibly easy to adore. She was so pure, so open, so unabashedly caring; it was all he could do, most of the time, not to stare.

"Wesley?" she asked, startling him out of his thoughts as she waved a plate of freshly baked cookies under his nose with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Can I tempt you?"

She could, at that.

* * *

A/N Oh, I feel evil for doing it, but it's so much fun to push the Wesley/Fred/Gunn dynamic, back in the days when it was all in good fun and Wesley wasn't insane.

Tomorrow: The anniversary of a certain sad event.

Reviews and suggestions always welcome!


	6. December 6th

Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N Okay, so I played a little fast and loose with the timeline, here. If we're going by airdate, technically Doyle died November 30th-- but then again, if you go by airdate, season 4 takes place over months when the story only spans weeks. So I improvised a little.

* * *

Cordelia Chase woke up to her alarm at 7 AM; she did not remember.

She was out of the shower by 7:30 and dressed by 7:45, and still she did not remember.

She did not remember when she drank her first cup of coffee, and she did not remember when she got in her car at 10 of 8.

It was not until she walked into the lobby of the Hyperion at precisely 8:03 and was blasted simultaneously by Wesley's sympathetic glance and the smell of omelets that she realized what day it was.

Had it really been two years?

Silently, she walked past the front desk and descended into the depths of the hotel, towards the kitchen.

"Angel?" she hazarded, watching as he labored over the stove, flipping eggs.

"Morning, Cordy. Orange juice? It's fresh squeezed." He waved vaguely at the island behind him, which was already piled high with food and drink. "It's been ages since I made you breakfast, hasn't it? But Fred was using the kitchen yesterday, and it reminded me of the old place, and I just thought, 'why not?' For old time's sake."

"Angel."

"I should cook for you guys more often," he continued, not looking up from the frying pan. "After missions and stuff. We have all this room, and I never—"

"Angel, stop," she said in a voice that was not as gentle as she'd intended.

He looked at her a moment, the fake smile that had been frozen on his face slowly wilting, before turning away and busying himself with his spatula. Turning off the heat, he slid the finished omelet onto a plate and carried it over to the table.

She sat next to him, and they were both silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't—" he said as she started "Angel, this is very sweet, but—"

He sighed. "I know. You don't have to eat it. I just…"_ I needed to make it. _

"No, I'm glad you did. I have missed this, actually."

They shared a look of sad understanding, and decided without saying a word to visit the pier in the evening.

-

'_That's the dock where he finally asked me out,'_ Cordelia thought sullenly as she and Angel looked out over the wharf. _'It was barely a hundred yards from here that he…'_

The car ride over had been spent in silence, as she could not find a way to say _"I'm glad you're with me this time" _without saying _"You're an insensitive asshole for not being here last year," _and while she was hardly ahead of the bell curve when it came to If You Can't Say Something Nice, Don't Say Anything At All, she certainly knew better than to start something.

Last year at this time, she'd been alone and miserable, and had commemorated the evening by getting drunk with Wesley and Gunn—which would have counted as a tribute, if that hadn't been what they'd done pretty much every night after they'd gotten fired. Angel, for his part, hadn't bothered with calendars, wrapped up as he was in his vendetta against Wolfram & Hart. By the time he'd thought to check the date, he found he'd missed it by a week.

"It's all my fault," Angel muttered, figuring it was as good an ice-breaker as anything else.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Really? You're gonna go there?"

He looked at her.

"Alright, then. Yes, Angel, it's all your fault. I'm very disappointed in you for not jumping instead of Doyle, because there was definitely a way you could have saved you both, if only you'd been quicker. I'm also mad at you for not having the decency to die when Darla bit you in the 1700s, and also for letting Darla stake herself when she had Connor, because we probably would have ended up good friends, once I got to know her. I hate you for not being able to get to Faith before Wes did, and I hate you for killing Willow's goldfish. Oh, I'm sure I'm forgetting something… right! I also blame you for starting a land war in Russia during the wintertime, thereby making you directly responsible for the rise of communism."

"Cordelia, this isn't a joke."

"Of course it's not. You've single-handedly ruined the world." She scoffed, looking out at the water. "Can you believe this guy, Doyle? Always finds a way to make it about him."

A ghost of a smile.

"It's been two years, today," she continued. "I can't believe that. Sometimes it feels like decades, but then I'll pass someone in the street wearing your aftershave, or Wesley will say 'duty' and I'll remember how much I loved it when you said it, because it always sounded like 'judy' with that stupid accent of yours…" She looked at Angel. "This would be a lot easier if I weren't carrying the whole conversation."

"Oh. I, um." He looked away from her, staring intently at the spot the ship had been docked. "I have a kid now. A son."

"His name's Connor," Cordy added affectionately. "I'd watch out, Doyle. I think Angel's trying to out-Irish you."

Angel shot her an exasperated look.

"What? It's a legitimate interpretation."

"No, that's not what I—this was a bad idea. We should go."

"What, that's it? You're done now?"

"I'm not gonna talk to empty air, Cordelia."

"It's not about whether or not he can hear you! If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times—you don't have to do the unflappable thing for me. Remember? Why do you refuse to deal with this?"

"Me? You're the one who wouldn't eat the eggs!"

"I'm not going to indulge your avoidance issues by eating your Misery Omelets!"

"They weren't misery omelets, they were apology omelets! And I—" he stopped abruptly, his eyes softening. "… you don't care about the omelets."

She shook her head. "Not even a little bit."

"Then why…?"

"What. You don't feel better?"

"A little, but that's… not right. We can't do it like this. By fighting."

She laughed. "Angel, if I were fighting with you, you'd know. That wasn't a fight. That was bickering. Can you honestly not tell the difference?"

He considered it a moment. Thought about how she'd been with Xander, and Doyle, and even Wesley, from time to time. How they'd get on each others nerves, snit like children, then make up in as few words as possible.

And she said _he _had annoying coping mechanisms.

"…it still doesn't feel right," he insisted stubbornly.

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a five-year-old. I'm sorry I yelled at you, and that I didn't eat your Apology Omelet. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay. I'm going to go wait in the car."

"…you are?"

"Yes."

"And… what am I doing?"

"You stay. You're not done yet."

He watched her walk back to the car in silence, and he thought about Doyle, and wondered if maybe he understood, after all.

* * *

A/N Oh, I'm incorrigible. But I did my best to steer clear of too many Important Conversations in a row.

Tomorrow: our intrepid heroes are captured!


	7. December 7th

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

* * *

"Look. All I'm saying is that this kind of thing would never happen if I were still boss," said Angel.

"This kind of thing happened constantly when you were boss," Wesley dismissed as he examined their small, dusty cell for an escape route, as he'd been doing for the past half hour. "The only difference being that you would have refused to bring back-up."

"…which means that the rest of us would have been out there, trying to rescue him," Cordelia pointed out. "As opposed to being in here, trapped."

"Thank you, Cordelia. You're profoundly helpful."

"Keep quiet in there!" insisted one of the guards from the other side of the door.

Gunn looked up from the small knot in the wall Wesley had found but deemed useless, which he'd been using to spy on the rest of the hallway. "We're definitely not alone down here. They keep bringing in swamis and ninjas and funny-lookin' demons in funnier-lookin' outfits."

"Of course," Wesley realized. "That would explain…" He turned to the door. "So that's your game, is it? You're abducting Seers?"

"Not me, personally," the unseen guard said personably. "But that's the general idea."

Wesley nodded to himself. That would explain why they'd been tailed in the first place—whomever their captors were, they probably had a way of tracking mystical powers, which would have led them right to Cordelia.

"And you're doing this because…?" the aforementioned Seer demanded of the door.

"In your case? I'm baffled."

She looked as if she'd just been struck. "Did I just get insulted by a demon?"

"I think you just got called annoying by a demon," Gunn clarified.

"Thank you, Gunn. You're profoundly helpful," she snitted, glaring at Wesley.

"But it at least proves my earlier point. It wouldn't have been all of us trying to rescue Angel. The only reason we're here is because Cordelia is a target."

"Hey!"

And Angel, watching them snipe at each other, formed a plan…

-

Angel was thrown to the floor of the cell with a sickening thud.

"So much for Plan A," he muttered, glowering at the door as it was slammed shut. Unable to muster the strength to pick himself up more than a few inches, he collapsed again with a pitiful "ow."

"Plan A never works," Cordelia observed, getting up from her spot on the floor to help him. "It's like a law."

Wesley raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Are you saying my plans aren't good?" Angel demanded, stung.

Cordelia opened her mouth to retort, but Gunn intervened before they could start up again. "What she's saying," he said quickly, "is that no matter who comes up with it, Plan A never works. Plan B pretty much always falls through after that, and then it's Plan C that gets us out."

"So we come up with a Plan C," Angel announced triumphantly, then winced and grunted as Cordy pulled him into a sitting position, sending shooting pains across his abdomen.

"One can't cheat the system," Wesley pointed out. "One needs a Plan B for Plan C to succeed."

"There's a system?" Gunn asked, amused.

"A law," Cordelia corrected.

"Whichever," Wesley said over them, "it seems rather obvious, in retrospect. Take our current predicament. We are stuck in a cell, prisoners of an enemy for which we have no name and no information. Plan A—annoying our captors into letting us go—has, as always, failed."

"And earned me a few new bruises," Angel reminded them, feeling a bit left out.

"Plan B will involve reasoning with them, and will also fail—"

"—unless Cordelia can seduce a guard like she did that one time," finished Gunn.

Cordelia went scarlet, either from anger or embarrassment. "You swore we'd never speak of it again!" Anger, then.

Wesley continued on as if he couldn't hear them. "Which leads us to Plan C, in which we allow Angel to resort to brute violence while we quip."

"And look damn impressive," Gunn added.

Angel perked up. "I can fight back now?"

"If we skip to Plan C, then yes."

"I am all for glossing over Plan B," Cordelia said quickly.

There was a thoughtful silence as Angel, all of a sudden miraculously recovered, stood up and brushed himself off.

"I like Plan C," he announced before placing himself by Gunn's hole in the wall and kicking, hard, until the wood started to splinter.

"That's the classic Angel spirit, boys," Cordelia sighed, shaking her head. "Never use a door when you can make one of your own."

With a loud CRACK, the wood gave way completely, allowing them access into the hallway.

"And by the way—that sure took you long enough!" Cordy added as they ran, shouting over the din of alarms and guards.

Angel looked slightly put out. "You know, a thank you wouldn't be out of line!"

"No, just out of character," she grinned.

They fled.

* * *

A/N Plotless bickering, I know. But fun!

Tomorrow: Wes and Cordelia send out Christmas cards.


	8. December 8th

Disclaimer: None of them are mine.

* * *

_To Anne,_

_Congratulations on your first Christmas at the new teen shelter! We hope that this will be the first of many happy holiday seasons filled with togetherness and joy. We thank you for letting us help out when we can, and wish nothing but luck and prosperity in the year ahead, for you and your ever-expanding family._

_Happy Holidays,_

_Wesley Wyndam-Pryce and the team of Angel Investigations_

_P.S. Look for our donations in the mail!_

_**To Kate,**_

_**Thank you for the lovely card… though I have no idea why you'd ever want to keep in touch with us. The antiques shop sounds fascinating. Good luck with it. Really.**_

_**Merry Christmas,**_

_**Cordelia Chase & the team of Angel Investigations**_

_**PS - Maybe you should get a cat?**_

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Burkle,_

_Here's wishing you a wonderful holiday season! May you stay be safe and healthy throughout the coming year, and know that we're taking excellent care of Fred. You are truly blessed to have each other, so I hope you take this season to relax and enjoy the good company. And, if it isn't too much trouble, send more cookie care packages? For Fred._

_Happy Holidays,_

_Wesley Wyndam-Pryce and the team of Angel Investigations_

_**To Bethany,**_

_**How's that telekinesis working out for you? We're proud to report that more than a year after we helped you get away, we are no closer to taking down Lilah than we were when you met us. Here's hoping your safe house is comfy cozy, and that the whole sanity thing takes.**_

_**Merry Christmas,**_

_**Cordelia Chase & the team of Angel Investigations**_

Cordelia looked up from the Christmas card she was writing to examine the list on the table more closely.

"Hey, wait a minute."

Wesley paused. "Yes?"

"Why am I stuck with the crappy cards? Look," she pointed at the list, "you got all our favorite clients, Giles, Fred's parents... Look at mine. Crazy telekinetic girl? Kate the Cop? Faith?! Come on. The only good person I got is David Nabbit."

Wesley adjusted his glasses. "I know it's not fair, Cordelia, but I simply lack your talent."

"…Huh?"

"Come now. Anyone can write a nice, polite Christmas letter. I don't want to waste your skill. It takes an _artist_ to express one's true feelings for a person in such a way that one can't even be accused of being rude. I mean, would you rather send one of my generic heartfelt Christmas greetings to, for instance, Faith—or..." smirking in clear delight, he picked up Cordy's half-finished card and read aloud, "'Dear Faith, tell all the other prison inmates we said Merry Christmas?'"

Cordelia considered this for a second. "You're right. My bad."

And then they went back to writing.

-

"Cordelia, what's this?" Wesley asked, noticing a new addition to the pile of outgoing mail.

"What's what?"

"This," he said distastefully, picking up the offending card.

"What's it _look _like, Wesley?"

"Well, it looks an awful lot like a Seasons Greetings to your ghost, written on the company letterhead."

"…When you say it like that, it sounds stupid."

"Heaven forbid."

"Don't be a jerk, Wesley. What, you think Dennis won't notice Christmas? Christmas is, like, the bread and butter of ghostdom. If I don't show it the proper amount of respect, he could go all A Christmas Carol on me. I don't need to be Marley'd."

"And to circumvent that, you're giving the Phantom Dennis an official Angel Investigations Christmas card."

She shot him one of her _'what are you, slow?' _looks. "That's what I just said."

"Considering what's at stake, it hardly seems like enough effort."

"Way ahead of you, Wes—that's why I'm putting it in…" she produced a paper something from behind her back, "this."

"A red-and-green-coloured envelope?"

"With a reindeer on it!"

Wesley did not have a response for that.

* * *

A/N Kate's antique shop is, yes, a shout out to the Angel comics.

Tomorrow: You know, I haven't decided. It will be an exciting surprise!


	9. December 9th

Disclaimer: They all belong to Mutant Enemy.

* * *

"Ah!" Angel winced, jerking beneath Cordy's fingers. "Are you enjoying my pain? Be honest."

She dropped the wooden splinter into the bowl Fred was holding, shook her hair out of her face and rolled her eyes. "Yes, Angel," she muttered, "I'm having the best time ever removing a thousand tiny stakes from your back. In fact, I'm hoping my hand will slip so that I brush against your heart and you **die**. Because I want to lose my job, and my paycheck, meager as it is."

"Don't worry," Wesley said, entering the lobby with a fresh pot of coffee, "I won't fire you if you kill him."

"Really? That's so…"

"Can't let those visions go to waste, after all."

"—suddenly 'sweet' isn't the word I'm looking for."

Angel twisted around to give them both sad puppy eyes, which Wesley ignored with practiced ease.

"Just a few more," she told Angel, a little more gently than before, knowing that if it hurt enough for him to mention it at all—even jokingly—it must have been more tender than she'd thought.

"You said that last time—"

"Let me work," she ordered. He sighed, and she snapped the tweezers at him in as threatening a manner as she could. Closing his eyes, he turned back around to give her access to his shoulder blade.

"Now I know we're doing the whole quiet, polite 'let Cordy save Angel's ungrateful hide before we ask him what happened' thing, but that thing sucks. Angel, what the hell?"

"Wouldn't it be easier for you to do your job if I didn't tal—OW!"

"No, Cordelia is right," Wesley decided. "Angel, what happened?"

He stared at the wall, and mumbled as quietly as possible, "There was an oil slick that I didn't see, and I fell off the scaffolding."

"You slipped?" Gunn interpreted, sounding like he couldn't decide between concern and amusement.

"Don't move, Angel," Cordy warned.

"I didn't _slip_, I fell. I don't slip."

"What I don't understand," Wesley interrupted, "is why you felt it reasonable to charge in without contacting us first. You were supposed to call when you found the hive, not eradicate the threat yourself."

Cordy squinted in concentration. "Wes, I'm sure Angel thought it was a good idea at the time."

"OW! Cordy—"

"What?" she asked innocently. "Almost done."

Wesley caught her eye and she gave him a conspiratorial wink. Holding her breath to keep her hand steady, she removed the last of the shards from Angel's skin. "There. Was that so bad, you big baby?"

* * *

A/N I know, this was painfully short, and the latest I've posted. I kind of slept until 3:30 today, and everything got thrown off...

Tomorrow: a training session in the basement.


	10. December 10th

Disclaimer: None of them are mine.

* * *

Cordelia Chase landed on her ass.

For the twenty-third time.

Angel sighed and shook his head. "You're making me look bad, Cordy. It's only been a few weeks; have you seriously forgotten everything?"

Cordy, on her ass and covered in sweat, frowned. "Well, we never really covered the whole karate thing. Not my fault you like swordplay and evasions."

He arched an eyebrow and offered her a hand.

"Don't start," she warned, letting him pull her to her feet.

"Well, you need to pay more attention to your opponent." Still holding onto her hand, he twisted her around and over, driving her to her knees with his mouth at her neck. "Stay alert."

"You suck," she pouted, wrenching herself away.

He gave her a small smile and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it."

Seizing the moment, Cordelia grabbed the hand on her shoulder and yanked as hard as she could, flipping him over.

Angel, of course, landed on his feet.

"Ow!" she cried, in pain but pleased. "I mean, HA. Ow, but ha. I did it! I flipped you!"

"Not bad," he acknowledged, sounding proud. Then he dropped to the mat, swiped the floor with his leg and kicked her feet out from under her.

Cordy landed on her ass. Again. "Damn it."

Angel stood up and shook his head. "We're gonna have to train more often. This is just sad."

Cordelia stood up, glowering. "Y'know, you could have died yesterday. You had massive gaping wounds, which _I _had to bandage. Has it occurred to you that maybe I'm just going easy on you?"

He actually laughed. "I have an advanced healing rate; you're just full of it."

She eyed him warily. "I know I make a big deal out of getting you to laugh and smile and act like a real boy, but you know what? It doesn't suit you." She paused, taking a long drink from her water bottle. "Could you please go back to being unbearably grim? Brooding, obsessive creature-of-the-night you was so much more tolerable."

He ignored her. "At the very least, I'd have thought you'd have learned to land on your feet and not your ass by now. You grew up in Sunnydale; aren't you supposed to develop instincts for this kind of thing? I mean, you didn't see Willow falling on her butt all the time. Can't really say the same for Xander, but he's… Xander."

She gaped. "You did NOT just say I'm no better in a fight than Xander Harris."

He shrugged.

Unable to contain her fury, Cordelia tackled him. They wrestled, a mess of legs and fists. Cordy clawed at Angel, trying to get a good grip on… well, anything. But the vampire had two centuries of experience and eighty pounds on her. He was too strong, and too skilled.

And Cordy was thrown, once again, on her ass—Angel's mouth, once again, against her carotid.

Angel frowned against her neck and climbed off of her. "You make it too easy."

Cordy just sat there on the ground and gasped for air, apparently too winded even to retort. He tossed her a towel. "Going off half-cocked because you're upset, I mean. You need to calm down. Be more like Buffy."

She stared at him. "Tell me that was a joke."

"From a brooding, obsessive creature of the night? Don't be ridiculous."

"Okay; I officially declare this sudden emergence of a sense of humor deeply disturbing."

"That's just my point," he said simply. "All that quipping Buffy does? It's just another tool. Stops her opponents from getting in her head, gives her time to think. Because, getting thrown on your ass? Not a big deal. You still have options then. Getting pinned to the ground by a vampire leaves you with a lot fewer options."

She glared.

"Why don't we stop here for the day?" he offered, off her look. "Before you get any more bruises."

She picked herself—gingerly—up off the ground. "You dispense random wisdom, kick my ass, then call it a day. Sure know how to treat a girl right, Angel."

"…you sound mad."

"I'm not mad."

"But—"

"Angel, I _asked _you to train me. You think I'm so petty that I'd get mad at you for being better at it than I am?"

"Okay, **now** you sound mad."

"I'm not mad, I'm annoyed."

He studied her a moment. "I… want me to make you lunch?"

"Shower, then lunch," she decided, trudging up the stairs.

"Alright. Will I need to dig out that special cushion for you?"

Cordelia came to a dead halt in the doorway. "I do NOT need the hiney-donut."

He smirked.

* * *

A/N This wasn't INTENDED to be such an Angel/Cordy-centric story, but it just kind of... happened. But their little training sessions were my favorite parts of early season 3.

Tomorrow: Fred, Lorne, Gunn and Wesley do... SOMETHING. Because I've been neglecting them.


	11. December 11th

Disclaimer: Along with the usual suspects, I also don't own Alvin & the Chipmunks.

* * *

"Christmas, Christmas, time is near! Time for toys and time for cheer…"

Wesley chuckled to himself as he navigated the Los Angeles afternoon traffic and Alvin, Simon, Theodore, Fred and Gunn sang it old school.

Fred had woken up that morning with an insatiable desire to go ice skating. She had wanted to take Angel, but frantic throat-slashing motions from Cordelia had indicated that that was probably a bad idea—Buffy baggage, Wesley supposed, which he was more than happy to avoid.

So he gave Angel the day off to play with Connor, leaving Cordelia to mind the hotel and Fred with two slightly overeager chaperones.

"Me, I want a hula hoop!" he sang, joining in and feeling lighter than he had in weeks.

-

"C'mon, guys, it's like ridin' a bike!" Fred called happily at the two men struggling to keep up with her. "You never forget how!"

"You say that like I knew how in the first place," Gunn pointed out, holding the rink railing in a death grip. Wesley was faring only slightly better; while he was actually on the ice proper, he was standing perfectly still in an attempt not to fall. His posture was, as usual, ramrod straight, and his arms were held stiffly at 45-degree angles from his body.

"Relax," Fred coached, spotting him. "Bend your knees. Lean over a little."

Wesley, looking terrified but determined, tilted his torso forward and bent down marginally. His feet slipped dangerously in their skates.

"More than that," Fred insisted. "Shift your center of balance. Ice skating is all about adapting."

Wesley tilted and immediately began to wobble. He thrust his arms out parallel to the ground and teetered, trying to straighten.

Fred laughed and slid in front of him, grasping his wrists and pulling him forward. "Like this," she said gently, leading the two of them in a lazy counter-clockwise circle. When it seemed like he'd gotten the hand of it, she let go.

"Your turn, Charles!" she said brightly, skating over to his shaky perch.

"I dunno. I'm good here. Skating's not really my thing."

"Don't be like that! It's _fun!_" She twirled in place to prove her point.

Gunn heaved a heavy sigh, meant to convey the length of his suffering and the pains he undertook to please her. Somehow, he couldn't manage to make it very convincing when she was smiling at him like that. Setting his jaw, he pushed off hard with his right foot, lifting it as if he were running.

"Don't bounce, Charles, _glide,_" Fred instructed, demonstrating as she moved backwards.

Wobbling by the two of them at half her speed, Wesley muttered something about Fred's "predilection for exhibitionism."

"If you're gonna call me a show-off, you should come right out and say so!" she shouted after him, laughing.

Gunn just gritted his teeth and stumbled in an attempt to 'glide.'

"Ooh, careful," Fred warned, reaching out to grab his arm, which he'd been windmilling backward. "Bend!"

Gunn pitched forward, grabbing Fred by the elbow and taking her with him. They swung down in a violent arc as the front of his blade caught on the ice, causing his other foot to fly out from under him. Fred's superior grace and agility kept her standing; Gunn fell to the ice in a heap, landing painfully on his back.

"Charles! Are you alright?" she asked, wide-eyed, kneeling beside him and pulling his head onto her lap.

He considered it. "I'm, uh, a little dizzy. Maybe we should rest here a minute."

"Did you hit your head? Do you have a concussion?"

"No, no," he insisted, chuckling a little.

She tried not to pout. "What's so funny?"

"N-nothing," he insisted, trying to straighten his face. He cracked up again.

"Come on. What is it?"

"It's just…" he struggled to sit up, wanting to look at her properly. "Here we are bending over backwards to impress you, and then you go and sweep _me _off _my _feet. It's just kinda ironic, I guess."

Fred went scarlet.

* * *

A/N They're just so cuuuuute.

Tomorrow: those pesky visions pop up again.


	12. December 12th

Disclaimer: Ephesus the entity is my original creation; the rest belong to Joss.

* * *

"…and when he regained consciousness," Wesley narrated, "he found that he'd been entered into a kind of gladiator ring for demons. It was only through Cordelia's and my efforts that he made it out alive, really."

Fred was enthralled. "That's amazing. Y'all've had such crazy adventures. But, Wesley. I don't understand—Angel's dead."

He blinked. "Well, strictly speaking, yes."

"So how can he be knocked unconscious? I mean, barring the fact that his being conscious in the first place is an anomaly."

Wesley opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted quite effectively by the sound of Cordelia's screams.

-

Cordelia, for her part, didn't realize she was screaming. But then again, she was a bit too preoccupied with the fact that she was _being skinned alive, blood boiling_ to worry about silly things like noise. She could feel it; _being ripped apart slowly, piece by piece—_

"Angel, what's happened?" Wesley demanded, rushing into the lobby to find Angel just barely supporting Cordelia as she convulsed.

Angel seemed stricken. "I don't know; she won't stop screaming. She hasn't had one this bad since…" he trailed off. "I thought they'd been getting better."

"Pen!" Cordy gasped, coming out of it. "Pen, and paper."

"You saw a pen and paper?" Angel asked, still panicked. Luckily, Wesley was a bit quicker on the uptake, and rushed to get her a legal pad and a pencil from his office while Fred went behind the front desk to pour her a glass of water.

She struggled out of Angel's grasp and immediately lost her balance. "I need to—"

"You need to sit," he ordered, picking her up and carrying her to the couch.

Wesley returned with the office supplies and she set to work, writing in a language she didn't understand. "I saw these… symbols… I need a minute. Angel, would you stop breathing down my neck?"

"I don't breathe," he protested.

He could tell how much pain she was in by how pitiful her glare was; nevertheless, he backed off while she sketched.

After several moments of silence, Fred trotted forward with the glass of water. "Cordy, here."

Cordelia, startled, stared uncomprehendingly at the cup in Fred's hands, looking as if she wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do with it.

"Drink," Fred reminded her gently.

Cordelia attempted to wave her off, but withered under the concerned gazes of her colleagues and hurriedly gulped down the water before returning to the symbols.

-

"Do these make any sense to you? They don't make any sense to me."

Half an hour later, Angel was pacing Wesley's office while the younger man poured over his textbooks. Cordelia had been banished to one of the guest bedrooms with a handful of painkillers and Lorne as a babysitter after she'd completed her drawings. Their efforts to identify the symbols were going surprisingly well, considering, but not nearly fast enough for Angel's tastes.

"I'm doing the best I can, Angel. I recognize these runes at the beginning—something about eyes, a soldier, the country, and… the sun? But then it degenerates into some ancient script I can't decipher. The root language, I assume."

Angel made his way for the door, intent on checking on Cordelia.

And turned around, walking the other way. He wasn't going to bug Lorne for an update every five minutes.

And turned around again. Yes, he was.

-

Cordelia jerked awake from the nap she'd barely settled into at the sound of Angel's knock. She gave Lorne a pleading look and whimpered, hiding her head under the pillow.

The empath was feeling slightly less than cordial as he opened the door as little as he could, to help block the light. "Did you figure it out?"

"No, but—"

"Her head still hurts. Go back downstairs; she's fine with me."

"But Lorne—"

His eyes softened at Angel's utter helplessness. "She just needs rest, and she needs you to let her. Go back downstairs."

Forlorn, Angel gave up and left. Lorne closed the door and turned around to find Cordelia sitting up and looking at him. There were bags under her bloodshot eyes where there hadn't been before, and Lorne wished for the thousandth time that the Powers That Be had picked someone else to be their messenger.

"Wow, you look…"

"Awful?" she suggested wryly. "Terrifying? Corpse-like?"

"Exhausted," Lorne corrected. "But beautiful as always."

"You are a sweet, sweet man, Lorne, but a terrible liar. I'm on to you, pal…" she stopped when she noticed the way he was gawking at her. "What?"

"Your… your nose is bleeding…"

Cordelia cursed and reached for a tissue. "Gotta love these visions," she cracked weakly. "Always keep you on your toes."

"Cordy…"

"I just want to go home, Lorne. Can I do that?"

He gave her a sad smile. "I'll get Gunn to take you."

-

"Eureka," Wesley breathed, dropping his pen.

Angel was on his feet in a moment. "You got it?" And, noticing the look of horror on Wesley's face, calmed immediately. "How bad?"

"_Avert thy gaze, O Champion of the land,_" Wesley translated, "_For what I do is not concerned with the light. The gates shall be opened, and unto Ephesus will I return._"

"So… how bad?" Angel asked again, after a moment.

Wesley looked up. "You've never heard of Ephesus?"

Angel merely shook his head.

"Well. You've heard of hell dimensions—you've been to one yourself, I understand." Angel nodded. "And of course you're familiar with the myths of the Old Ones… powerful proto-demons, either dead or trapped or banished from this earth?"

"Get to the point, Wesley."

"Ephesus is… both, in a way. You cannot fight him; there is nothing to hit. He… or, I suppose It would be a more appropriate pronoun, is concentrated energy; its…" Wesley took a moment, and adjusted his glasses. "Imagine a being as vast as a galaxy—whose every heartbeat is a thousand Hiroshimas, whose gaze can strip flesh from bone. Whose blood is the universal solvent, an acid ten times purer than any on Earth. Imagine that, and you have not even begun to fathom Ephesus."

"Then how are we supposed to defeat him? And why the symbols?"

"I'm hoping we won't have to. I believe that the symbols are a prophecy, or perhaps a spell. I can only assume that some followers are attempting to… well, I suppose it would be rather like a… pilgrimage."

"So when it says the gates will open…"

"A portal from our world to the center of Ephesus."

"Which… would be bad."

"Indescribably so. One cannot just step from one dimension to the next. You've seen it. They bleed into one another. With Ephesus, we're talking about a higher order of reality entering this plane. Ephesus has… more of everything. I don't think you understand yet; it's just as much a place as a demon. The light of Ephesus would slash open your corneas. The voice of Ephesus would puncture your eardrums, drive you insane. The air of Ephesus would burst your lungs and boil your blood. Only spirit can bear its touch. All flesh is destroyed by it."

"So we find the cult, and stop them before they have the chance."

Wesley sighed. "If only we knew where to begin."

-

"Honestly, Gunn, I'm fine. I don't need you to walk me to my door."

Gunn paid her no attention. "I seem to remember you makin' me a promise to save my life, whether I wanted you to or not. Think I owe you a few."

The door opened as they approached her apartment; Cordelia turned to him, looking smug. "There, see? Dennis can take care of me. You need to go back to the hotel, see if they've made a breakthrough. Wouldn't want them to go off to battle without you."

Gunn studied her a moment. "You sure you'll be alright?"

"I promise. Please, go."

She waited until he was back in his truck before she slid inside her door and let the lock click behind her.

"There's ice cream in the freezer," Cordelia grumbled. "You have thirty seconds to get it into my face, or I'll cry."

Fortunately, Dennis was a ghost of action; twenty-three seconds later, Cordy was attacking a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk with a vengeance she normally reserved for demons, vampires, and people who forgot her birthday.

There was a clipping from the yellow pages taped onto the spoon. After several mouthfuls, she paused to examine it.

And promptly lost her appetite. "No, Dennis, I'm not going to call the doctor now. It's late, and all I want to do is eat enough Ben and Jerry's that I can pretend this migraine is an ice cream headache, and go to bed. I can't deal with any more stress right now."

The lights flickered moodily.

"Look, if I still feel bad in the morning, I'll make an appointment, okay? Go during lunch."

Her apartment steeped in soothing darkness once more, Cordelia closed her eyes and pressed the pint carton up to her forehead, and tried very hard not to think.

* * *

A/N Oh my god it's almost like having a plot. Ephesus is so named because I'm carrying on the Illyria tradition. Illyria is the country in which Twelfth Night takes place; Ephesus is the setting of Comedy of Errors. Yay Shakespeare!


	13. December 13th

Disclaimer: Not mine!

* * *

Cordelia frowned at her reflection, her head throbbing. "It's a wonder I'm still single, Dennis," she croaked, voice sleep-fuzzed and throat still raw from yesterday. "When I look this good in the morning, I don't know how anybody resists me."

It wasn't even the pain that was still resting in her joints that got to her; pain she could handle. But the person staring back at her in the mirror just seemed so… tired. Ancient. For the briefest of moments, she was reminded of the look Giles sometimes had, after he'd been knocked unconscious and things seemed at their bleakest. The comparison mortified her, and she shoved it to the back of her mind.

The shower was hot and steamy and smelled like flowers; toweling off, Cordelia felt a little more human, but just as arthritic and achy as she'd been when she woke up.

Dennis, she noticed, had scrawled the phone number of the doctor's office in the steam that had collected on the bathroom mirror. Feeling defeated, she picked up the phone.

-

"Age?" the nurse asked, examining her briskly.

It was a simple enough question, Cordy supposed. One she'd been asked a thousand times, at a thousand other clinics just like this one; every time a different doctor, her search for a second opinion turning into a third, fourth, fifth, thirtieth. A standard question. Just one more piece of information to go on the chart.

A chart that should have mentioned a lot of things: a rebar though the chest, several broken bones, and a history of migraines stemming from—as far as the hospitals were concerned—a psychotic episode a year and a half before. A list of the dozens of drugs prescribed in limitless quantities that had been pumped into her system since then, each as ineffective as the last. Drugs she kept under her bed, as hiding them in the closet seemed a little too cliché, and they weren't skeletons, not really.

The chart should have mentioned these things, but didn't. One of the first things you learn, when you're looking for a cure that doesn't exist, is that doctors don't really like it when you play them off of each other. Better to pretend to have a clean slate, if only for a moment.

"Miss Chase?" the nurse persisted. "How old are you?"

It was a simple question. But for just a second, the answer—how old, or rather, how young—had not seemed so simple.

"Twenty; I'll be twenty-one next month."

The nurse nodded, satisfied, and continued her physical. Touch your toes, take a breath for me, say "ah"—the routine was almost soothing, and Cordelia checked out.

There was a mirror on the far wall which she ignored valiantly. The tired look, the one Giles used to get, was back; she didn't want to see herself like that. In another time, another Cordelia would have stared at the reflection, raged at it. Would have insisted that a mistake had been made, and didn't they know who she was? Now, just thinking about it daunted her.

And the fatigue was terrifying; no wonder she could not accept her age.

Normal twenty-year-olds worry about college, and boys, and their appearance. One for three was a hollow victory, if you considered that she'd replaced college with saving the world and precognition that threatened her mental health.

And as for boys… well, no _wonder _she sometimes she forgot how old she was, when she spent the majority of her time with a man who'd lived two and a half centuries, yet still had the face and body of a twenty-six-year-old.

The worst thing the average twenty-year-old has experienced is the loss of a pet or a grandparent; the most difficult thing the average twenty year old has to face is a bad breakup or a long term paper. Cordelia had, just since she'd moved to L.A., exorcized an apartment, watched one of her closest friends leap to his own death to save others, gotten falsely diagnosed with acute schizophrenia, been crowned Princess of a hell dimension, and become impregnated with demon spawn—twice.

And despite all that, if someone asked her how old she was, the answer would still be "twenty, twenty-one next month." Tomorrow it would be one day closer, then two, then ten. And then she'll be an adult.

Funny how things turned out. When she'd first gotten to Los Angeles, eighteen and bright-eyed, she'd been flattered when people had called her mature for her age, certain that it would help her out in auditions. She could barely remember that girl… the life she'd had before she started working for Angel seemed impossibly distant; a thousand years ago or more.

Maybe that's how old she was. Twenty, going on twenty-one and a thousand years.

-

Cordelia wasn't sure what she was expecting to find when she returned to the Hyperion after her long lunch break, but she knew for a fact that Lilah Morgan was not on the list. And if she were, it certainly would not have included her saying:

"I think you need my help."

Wesley gawked. There were so many things wrong with that statement that he took a moment to check his pulse, concerned that he was suffering from a stroke. Because Lilah Morgan, Attorney at Law did not walk through the front door of Angel Investigations, put her briefcase on his desk and announce that he needed her help.

It simply wasn't done.

"…Are you lost?" he asked coldly when he regained use of his voice. "Because you're either very lost, or very daft, and even if you're evil, I never thought you were stupid."

"I'm flattered," she quipped lazily, "but no, neither. Honestly, I'm here to help you."

"You want to walk out that door," Angel snarled, coming up behind her. His voice was low and feral.

"Another good guess, but again: totally off the mark. Now are you gonna let me talk, or what?"

Wesley crossed his arms. "State your business and go."

She rolled her eyes. "You are no fun. The boys upstairs have it on good authority that some cult of wannabes is going to attempt to reach Ephesus by nightfall. Word is, you've been trying to track them down."

"And let me guess," Cordy snarked, joining them in Wesley's office. "Wolfram & Hart wants to extend its resources and lend a helping hand, out of the goodness of its shriveled black heart."

"Goodness has nothing to do with it. According to the doomsayers, achieving a dimensional rift at the size we're talking will cause Ephesus to hack up our reality like a meat cleaver through a head of lettuce. Which, believe it or not, is just as big an inconvenience to our operation as it is to yours."

"But surely, if this isn't a part of your master plan, you could eradicate the threat all on your own."

Lilah didn't lose her cool for a second. "Pleasing our clients is our first priority. Some of those clients are in the apocalypse business, and would be a bit pissed, to say the least, if they found out we had averted one. So we're outsourcing." She withdrew a manila folder from her briefcase. "This is everything you'll need to know about the cult—hidey holes, member track sheets, likely weaknesses. We give you the information, you take care of the problem, and everyone goes home with a heartbeat." With a quick glace at Angel, she added, "Well, most of us, anyway. Do we have a deal?"

Angel growled; she chuckled. "Now, now. I know that you occasionally lose that ever-tenuous grip on humanity, but 'grrrrrrr' falls just a hair short of articulate. Do we have a deal, or not?"

"You can't just come in here and… and **hire **us!" Angel shouted, unable to contain himself any longer.

"I'm not hiring; I'm aiding and abetting. I know better than to offer you money, Angel."

"Why should we believe any of this?" Wesley asked. "We have absolutely no reason to believe this is anything more than a trap."

Lilah shrugged. "What choice do you have?"

Wesley opened his mouth to retort, but Cordelia's migraine was coming back with a vengeance.

"Everything we need to know is in that file?" she interrupted, rubbing her temples.

"Everything we have," Lilah evaded.

Cordelia took it without a second glance. Lilah smiled. "At least someone around here listens to reason." She gathered up her things and made for the exit; she paused at the top step, hand on the doorknob. "I appreciate the assist."

"No problem, skank," Cordy muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

"No problem; thanks," she lied brightly, all smiles.

Lilah left, and Cordy's boys looked at her as if she had lobsters crawling out her ears.

"Cordelia," Wesley finally managed, "what on earth possessed you to do that?"

She looked him squarely in the eye. "What she said about the meat cleaver? That wasn't just a colorful metaphor, Wesley; I _felt _it. I'm still feeling it, and it's been almost a full day. I don't like it any than you do, but…"

Finally, Wesley took the folder from her hands and started browsing its contents. "I suppose we'll have to work quickly, then. Angel?"

"I hate portals," Angel grumbled, so quietly Wesley almost didn't hear him.

"Then let's make sure no one opens this one."  


* * *

A/N So much emo! I'll lay off soon, promise.

Tomorrow: Wesley and Cordelia go shopping for a tree.


	14. December 14th

Disclaimer: I own not these characters; I own them not.

* * *

"I'm cold," Cordelia announced.

Wesley studied her, amused. "We're outside in December."

The two of them were strolling leisurely around one of the many Christmas tree lots that had sprung up around the city. After yesterday's trying battle and brush with apocalypse (averted, one again), she had decided that they needed to do something "appallingly, unquestionably normal."

And here they were.

"Yes, but we live in L.A. We're not supposed to have to worry about the whole cold thing. How about this one?"

"It's already dying. See all the needles its shed?" he pointed out. "And I told you to bring a jacket."

"_Los Angeles, _Wesley! A magical land where jackets have no meaning. You're of sturdy, British stock. You like cold and rain and misery. I'm a California girl."

"Without a jacket. Which is why you're cold."

"Well, I don't want to be cold!" she whined.

He rolled his eyes. "This one?"

"Too small. Have you _seen _the Hyperion lobby? Come on. We're gonna need more than this sad little Charlie Brown tree. I'm getting depressed just looking at it."

"We can't get anything so large that it won't fit in the bed of Gunn's truck," he reminded her. "And could we hurry up? The sun will be down soon."

"You can't rush this, Wesley. Picking the perfect tree is a sacred tradi—Ooh, what about that one over there?"

-

"Two hours," Wesley marveled in awe as he struggled to lift the massive pine tree into the truck. "Two hours to pick the perfect tree. I'd been warned not to go shopping with you, Cordelia, but my lord…"

"Wesley… what's that?"

He slipped, the rough bark scraping at his hands. "What's what?"

But Cordelia was already in motion, tossing her purse at Wesley with a rushed "hold this!" and running across the street, towards a commotion over a collection tin.

Cordelia Chase may have grown up pampered, and was not always the most tactful person in the world. But she could not deny that she was—though she loathed the word—a Champion. She still answered every phone call with "Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless," and she meant it.

Cordelia Chase had a special, black place in her heart for bastards who dared rob a Salvation Army Santa.

"Stop! Stop, damn it!"

Somehow, the mugger was unswayed by her wildly persuasive arguments, and continued to run. Cordelia, of course, continued to chase, wishing that she could just whip out her taser or a crossbow or something and beat the crap out of him.

Unfortunately, all of her weapons were in her purse, and her purse was with Wesley, who had just barely managed to lash the tree and was now running after her.

The thug skidded into a dark alley in an attempt to evade her; rounding the corner, she launched herself forward, tackling him to the ground. She wrestled the charity box out of his hands, holding him down with her knees.

"Cordy!" Wesley gasped, entering the alley and tossing her purse to her. She caught it with ease and slammed the robber's head into the ground once, then stood.

"Steal anything, ever again, and I will know. I will find out, I will hunt you down, and I will shove this taser," she took it out and let it zap for a second, "so far up your nose you will shock yourself every time you sneeze for the rest of your pathetic, loser life. Are we clear?"

"I dunno," said another voice from the darkness. "I could stand to hear that again."

Wesley stepped closer, coming back-to-back with Cordelia as the thug's friends emerged from the shadows. A set-up. He did some quick calculations in his head as he evaluated the threat level.

"You're gonna let us take the tin. And give us your wallets, while you're at it—for our trouble and all," said the largest of the bunch, wielding a wicked-looking knife.

"Well, we wouldn't want to argue with two guys with knives, and… three unarmed, human men, would we Wesley?" Cordelia asked in a loud voice.

Wesley felt her muscles tense behind him. He thought about the past few days, and how her visions had left her feeling weak and useless. Thought about her endless training sessions with Angel, and how a good ass-kicking might be precisely the thing to lift her spirits.

"God, no," he replied, playing along. Then, under his breath: "On my signal. Try not to land any of them in the hospital, Cordy."

"I make no promises," she whispered back.

They went to work.

* * *

A/N Demons aren't the only dangers of LA-- but luckily, there are superheroes. Kinda.

Tomorrow: gingerbread houses!


	15. December 15th

Disclaimer: Take no offense and hire no lawyers.

* * *

The door to the Hyperion Hotel opened with a resounding slam, and Cordelia stood in the entranceway, soaked to the bone.

"It's sweet, really," she muttered as she rung out her hair, "the way the weather decided to be so generous and give me hypothermia for Christmas."

"Where're Angel and Wesley?" Fred asked from behind the front desk. Lorne was with her, his feet propped up on the coffee table.

"Still with that clan leader. Apparently, Skukla demons don't take kindly to females being present during affairs of state, so I got sent home. Where's Connor?"

Lorne groaned. "Finally put him down for a nap about ten minutes ago."

"I don't get baby snuggles?" Cordelia asked, face falling. "I'm wet and sad and I deserve baby snuggles."

"Do you want to deal with a cranky Connor? I mean, wake him up if you want sugarplum, but you're the one who has to rock him and sing Irish lullabies at him for an hour and a half if he starts crying. I've had my share."

She considered it a moment. "Right. I'm gonna go change. Is there dinner, at least?"

"Charles is getting Chinese food!" Fred reported happily.

"And we had to accommodate this one's appetite," Lorne added, sticking a thumb at Fred, "so there'll be plenty of extra for you. We're also accommodating her sense of whimsy—want to join us building gingerbread houses?"

"Ask me again in five minutes," she said, digging behind the front desk for her emergency outfit, "when my clothes aren't see-through."

And with that, she retreated to the bathroom.

"Thanks again for doing this with me, Lorne," Fred said as she started gathering ingredients from the cupboards. "It's just that yesterday we got a tree, and… I guess I'm feeling a little homesick. Making gingerbread houses was one of my favorite things."

"And it's not like we have anything remotely resembling Christmas in Pylea," he added, saying what she couldn't. She nodded.

"I hope that using graham crackers is okay. Mamma always used to bake the walls from scratch, but I don't think Angel likes it when I use the kitchen alone."

Lorne chuckled. "It'll be just fine, sweet pea, even if it's not entirely authentic. And _you—_" he pointed a stern finger at the baby monitor sitting innocently on the table, "no interruptions."

Fred set down the plates, icing, and box of graham crackers, and went to retrieve the candy. "Does that work?"

"Can't hurt. Don't get me wrong, I love the little munchkin. But I wouldn't put it past him to have rewired the thing to spy on _me. _'Oh look! Uncle Lorne's about to do something fun! I should scream for him.'"

Cordelia laughed as she exited the bathroom, clothes dry and spirits lifted. "Lorne, he's a month old. I don't think he's plotting against you yet."

"No? Think about who his parents are. Plotting's in his blood."

"As are really unfortunate hairstyle choices, if genetics are anything to go by," Cordelia realized. She made a face. "Poor Connor. Kid never stood a chance."

She sat beside him on the couch, Fred joining them with several bags of assorted gummies, mints, and chocolates. For a few moments they worked in silence, testing their somewhat rusty architectural talents.

"Wesley said he had to beat up a couple robbers on the way home from gettin' the tree," Fred said as she applied liberal amounts of frosting to a candy cane.

"Is _that _what Wesley said? Hate to burst your bubble, but Wesley was basically an innocent bystander to **my** swashbuckling heroics."

"Really?"

"And if anyone else asks, that's exactly how it went: I took on three of the guys myself, knocked a few teeth out, and they were barely conscious when we left 'em in the street. Everybody got that?"

"Loud and clear," Lorne said dutifully. "What kind of street fight are we talking here, anyway? Was this a Jets vs. Sharks kind of affair, or more Michael Jackson in the music video for Bad?"

Cordelia looked amused. "That's the fun of you, Lorne. All the bounciness, fluffiness and pop culture references of a prepubescent teenybopper girl, without, y'know, the… actual prepubescent teenybopper girl."

"I'm choosing to take that as a compliment."

"Everybody miss me?"

The three of them looked up from their culinary projects to see Gunn standing in the doorway, slick with rain and carrying two large grocery bags in his arms.

"Charles!" Fred cried excitedly at the same moment as Cordy cheered "Food!" The two were all over him in a matter of seconds.

"Ladies, ladies," he said generously, "there's enough of me for everyone."

Cordy snatched the first bag out of his hands and passed it to Fred, swiping the second for herself and carrying it to the counter.

"Hey!" Gunn protested as he was stripped of both girls and food.

"Nothing personal, Gunn—but I haven't eaten all day."

Gingerbread houses temporarily abandoned, the four of them dished out food and sat down for what counted as a family dinner.

"You know," Fred said pensively after a while, studying Lorne over the top of her lo mein-laden fork, "I think a lot of people would choose to be green. Your shade, if they had the choice."

Cordelia and Gunn shared a look and bit down hard on laughter, and it was clear, despite his green skin, that Lorne was going bright red. Which was fitting, in a way, as the whole evening seemed like a bizarre Christmas miracle come early.

-

It was a little past 11 when Angel and Wesley finally crept through the basement entrance to the darkened lobby. After a quick look at the room, Angel turned to his companion and shushed him before he could shout a greeting.

At first glance, the lobby appeared to be empty but for several plates of crumbs, a row of gingerbread houses on the front desk, and several mugs on the coffee table. Most of them were empty, but one contained long-cooled hot cocoa, and another something that looked suspiciously like blood with Hershey's chocolate sauce stirred in.

A second glance, however, revealed Cordelia—curled up on the couch, head in her arms, fast asleep. It spoke volumes of how exhausting the past few days had been, that she was able to crash before midnight anywhere that wasn't her bed.

'_She'd been waiting up for us,' _Angel realized, and he could not suppress the surge of warmth that flowed through his chest at the thought. He handed his slightly-bloodied mace to Wesley, who nodded and tiptoed to the weapons cabinet as Angel made his way to the couch.

"Cordelia," he murmured, shaking her shoulder gently. "Cordelia, wake up."

"Mmmmn… Angel?" She blinked up at him, bleary eyed, and gave him a sleepy smile. "Welcome home."

And it was such a small thing to get worked up about—the way she said "welcome home" instead of "welcome back." But he grinned at her anyway.

* * *

A/N Last section was completely necessary.

Tomorrow: Angel goes shopping!


	16. December 16th

Disclaimer: On top of the usual suspects, I own neither Buffy nor Sonnets from the Portuguese.

* * *

"I don't know what to get her."

Angel had done countless things in his 247 years on earth. Some extraordinary, some terrible… all memorable.

Fighting his way though a mall in the midst of a thousand other Christmas shoppers, trying to find the perfect gift for Cordelia? Was not one of those things.

In fact, he was fairly certain that the first time he'd ever stepped in a mall was as Angelus, when Buffy shot that rocket launcher at the Judge. Memorable, certainly. But not an experience he particularly wanted to repeat.

"You could get her clothes. She'd like that."

It had started out as a game.

He didn't think anyone else knew about it. Nothing serious, just… ever since Thanksgiving, it had fallen into a cycle. Angel would buy Cordelia a present and she, in turn, would tell him what it was before he had finished wrapping it.

In some ways it annoyed him—that he could never surprise her, and that she always seemed to be one step ahead. But in others it made him feel… wanted. The fact that she always knew what he was up to.

But that didn't change the fact that he had little more than a week left to figure something out. Which is why he had called in the big guns.

He'd asked Lorne.

"I know she'd like clothes. But I've bought her clothes before, and it was kind of an apology thing, and if I do it again she'll think I'm up to something. And besides, they're not really… Christmas-y."

Even though it was covered by a full head scarf, sunglasses, and a fedora, Angel could still feel the power of Lorne's skeptically raised eyebrow. "Angel, _you _aren't really Christmas-y. And that hasn't stopped you. But fine, clothes are out. Jewelry?"

"I got her a necklace when I went away over the summer."

"You're making this so much harder than it has to be. What did you get Buffy back in the day?"

Angel stopped dead in his tracks. "What makes you think—?"

"Oh, come on, muffin. I've seen the way you gaze at her."

"I do not _gaze _at Cordelia!" Angel insisted, mortified.

"Except for the part where you do," Lorne said peaceably, "but if vocabulary is that much of a sticking point, I'll amend it to 'stare.' Now answer the question."

"I… I got her _Sonnets from the Portuguese._"

"Poetry? Cordy'd love that!"

"D'you think?" Angel asked, with enough hope and desperation in his voice that Lorne had no choice but to take pity on the poor man.

"Oh, honey, no. Not in a thousand years. Our girl's too practical and you know it. I mean, I don't really understand why I'm here—she's your best friend. Isn't Cordy kind of your area of expertise?"

"Women in general are not my area of expertise," Angel said tiredly.

For a moment, his eye was caught by a kiosk in the middle of the floor. Amid necklaces and earrings was a small stand of what appeared to be wigs—hair extensions in every color of the rainbow, and he was forcibly reminded of the long brown tresses she'd chopped off the year before.

He entertained the notion for about two tenths of a second before he imagined her reaction, which went a little like: _"You got me… __**human hair**__… for Christmas. Golly gee, I'm the luckiest girl in the world."_

So not that, then.

And he knew Lorne was right—that first of all, he couldn't give Cordy poetry, and second of all he certainly couldn't give her the same gift he gave Buffy—but that doesn't stop Elizabeth Barrett Browning's words from echoing in his head. _"What can I give thee back, O liberal and princely giver, who hast brought the gold and purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, and laid them on the outside of the wall for such as I to take or leave withal, in unexpected largesse? Am I cold, ungrateful, that for these most mainfold high gifts, I render nothing back at all? Not so; not cold,--but very poor instead."_

With a gesture and a sigh he called Lorne back to him; beaten for the time being, he gave up and went home.

* * *

A/N The Sonnets thing is canon; that's what Angel got Buffy for her birthday in Helpless. The poems are actually remarkably appropriate... even if getting Buffy a book of poetry was an incredibly misguided idea. Oh, Angel.

Tomorrow: Wesley and Gunn get in a duel! Kind of.


	17. December 17th

Disclaimer: I don't own Princess Bride or Newsies.

* * *

"You'll never catch me!"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

"That's what you think! En guarde!"

WHAP! WHAP!

"I've never been defeated!"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

"Aha! I've got you on the run, now!"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

"My name is Charles Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

"The Dread Pirate Wyndam-Pryce leaves no prisoners!"

WHAP! WHAP!

"Wesley pun. Nice."

WHAP!

"Thank you, I thought so. But you gave me the opening."

WHAP! WHAP!

"Any time. I mean, uh, you'll not best me!"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

"Perhaps if you make a deal..." WHAP! WHAP! "…I could be persuaded to spare your life."

WHAP! WHAP!

"What kind of deal?"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

"Your life… for the last slice of apple pie."

WHAP! WHAP!

CRACK!

Gunn blinked at the broken wrapping paper tube in his hand, which was bent halfway around Wesley's head. "Looks like I win for now, Dread Pirate Wyndam-Pryce."

"Oh, dear," Wesley mumbled, fixing his askew glasses. "…Shall we go wrap some more so we can get another tube?"

"Maybe later. Right now, I need some eggnog."

Gunn retreated to the mini fridge behind the front desk; Wesley trotted after him, trying not to look disappointed.

"You'd rather drink a vile concoction of dairy and brandy than practice dueling?"

"Um, yes?"

"I find your priorities to be disappointingly askew."

Gunn gave him a look as he poured himself a generous mug of the 'vile concoction.' "You like usin' big words, don't ya?"

Wesley looked scandalized. "Askew is a five-letter word!" he protested shrilly. "How am I to truly excel in this world if the people around me cannot withstand a vocabulary of more than five-letter words?"

"Yours is a hard life, English. I feel for you."

"I'm back!" Cordelia called, entering the lobby. "And I have with me a Movie Night movie!"

Wesley groaned. "What this time?"

"Don't give me that. I spent a long time picking something we could all agree on. You'll like this movie. It's a historical drama about yellow journalism and efforts to unionize and freedom of the press. Very Wesleyish."

"Almost _too _Wesleyish," he agreed, quirking an eyebrow. "What's the catch?"

"…it also has singing and dancing and Christian Bale," she admitted sheepishly, pulling _Newsies_ out of her bag. "Gunn, you want to join us?"

He raised his mug at her. "I'm good. Got my nog, and more presents to wrap in Wes's office. I'll catch up wit' y'all later."

She shrugged. "Your loss."

The pathetic look Wesley shot over his shoulder as Cordy dragged him out of the room assured Gunn that he probably wasn't the one missing out.

* * *

A/N Heee. Love Newsies.

Tomorrow: the eggnog has consequences.


	18. December 18th

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the, like, six Christmas movies I quote here.

* * *

_Charles Gunn awoke with a groan. His head hurt._

_"Sometimesh, I wish I'd never been born," he grumbled, in a voice that did not sound at all like his._

_He looked down at himself—he appeared to have fallen asleep in his clothes, and was covered, quite thoroughly, in fake snow. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and went downstairs._

_The area behind the front desk seemed… different somehow. There was a large dinner table where there hadn't been before; the minifridge replaced with an entire kitchenette set. Angel sat at the table, reading the paper. Cordelia was at the kitchenette, apparently cooking._

_"I can't put my arms down," Gunn said plaintively, and then realized this to be true. Sometime in his trek down the stairs, his long snow-covered trenchcoat had been replaced by a puffy red snowsuit. He sat down at the table._

_"You can put your arms down when you get to school," Cordy shrugged, pushing a plate piled high with meatloaf and mashed potatoes in front of him. He made a face._

_"Meatloaf, smeatoaf, double beetloaf—I HATE meatloaf."_

_Cordy thought for a moment. "Can you show me how a piggy eats, Charlie?"_

_Gunn obediently faceplanted into his mashed potatoes. Cordy laughed, delighted._

_At that moment, Wesley ran in, wide-eyed. He tugged on Angel's arm. "I want an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle."_

_Angel merely grumbled and turned the page._

_"It has a compass in the stock, and this thing that tells time…" Wesley persisted, then stopped at the smell of smoke._

_They all looked to the basement door, which was spewing ugly oil-black fumes._

_"It's a clinker!" Angel announced, running to the door. "Stupid blasted furnace, dadgummit—" his voice trailed off as he disappeared down the stairs._

_A crash from the far side of the room, and Angel was forgotten. Gunn, Cordy and Wes all turned to find Lorne, brushing himself off as he stepped out of their fireplace. Since when did they have a fireplace?_

_Lorne was bedecked in full Santa regalia, but considering his normal wardrobe, it didn't seem terribly out of place. No more so, certainly, than anything else today._

_"A ha!" he announced, spotting their tree in the corner._

_And the tree wasn't like Gunn remembered it, either. The sturdy spruce Cordy and Wes had spent hours picking out had been replaced by a baby pine, little more than two feet tall and containing, in total, about six needles. It wilted pathetically to one side, as if the state of mere existence exhausted it._

_Lorne crept toward it, looking sinister. And then Fred appeared, standing at the top of the stairs in a nightgown._

_"Why, Santy Claus?" she asked sadly. "Why?"_

_"Why my sweet little tot," the fake Santa Claus lied, "there's a light on this tree that won't light on one side. So I'm taking it up to my workshop, my dear. I'll fix it up there, then I'll bring it back here."_

_Fred seemed satisfied by this, but as Lorne grabbed the sad little tree and snapped it closed like an umbrella, Gunn snapped._

_"Isn't there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?" he cried desperately. Lorne, who had been trying to stuff the tree back up the chimney, paused._

_"Sure Charlie Gunn, I can tell you what Christmas is all about," Fred said. "Lights, please?"_

_A lone spotlight shone on her as she solemnly recited Luke 2:8-14._

_"Do you want to carve the Roast Beast?" a soot-covered Angel asked Lorne, who looked near tears._

_And Gunn poured himself a glass of eggnog…_

-

Charles Gunn awoke with a groan. His head hurt.

"Are you alright, Charles?" Fred asked from the foot of the bed. He jumped.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, tongue fuzzy.

"I was passin' by and I heard you hollerin'. Were you dreaming?"

He rubbed his temples. "Guess I musta been. What happened?"

"Do you remember last night?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Well we started running out of eggnog, so you started pouring in more and more brandy to compensate and refill the carton. You probably have a hangover."

"Got that right," he nodded.

She cocked her head, curious. "What was your dream?"

"I… I think I was Jimmy Stewart? Only Angel and Cordelia were my parents. Cordy kept trying to get me to eat her mashed potatoes by asking me how a piggy eats while Angel read the paper and grumbled about the furnace. Wesley was there, too, and he kept pestering Angel for a BB gun. And then Lorne came down the chimney and tried to steal out Christmas tree, which was about two feet tall and had a total of six needles, until you came into the room and launched into a speech about What Christmas Is All About. And then we all had Roast Who Beast and eggnog."

She blinked at him and handed him a glass of water. "Maybe you shouldn't drink quite so much next time."

He frowned at the water glass.

"You'll be useless unless you start hydrating now," she warned.

"Half the time I feel useless anyway," he shrugged, before downing the water in one long gulp.

She beamed at him, and he tried very hard not to think about lassoing the moon.

* * *

A/N I don't even know.

Tomorrow: more tree fun.


	19. December 19th

Disclaimer: Not mine!

* * *

The atmosphere in Angel Investigations was light and cheery as Fred and Cordelia dressed the tree, the radio on low and playing "Baby It's Cold Outside." Connor was in his bassinet, Lorne cooing over him softly. Angel was out picking up food for those who actually ate, leaving Wesley to his studies and Gunn to… pretend to help Wesley study.

Instead, he was studying the women as they strung tinsel on the boughs.

"There's a Christmas card waiting to happen, huh Wes?" he chuckled, jerking a thumb at Cordy and Fred. "Naughty and nice."

And then he had to run.

Cordelia's hearing was better than he'd anticipated.

"Get back here, you jerk!"

"Better hide, Charles!" Fred laughed.

He dove towards the bassinet, scooping Connor up in his arms.

"Safe, safe!" he cried, laughing. "Home base! You wouldn't hit a man with a baby, woulja?"

"You insult me and then get rewarded with baby snuggles? No way, bubba—give him here."

"Um…hi?" Angel said, confused.

He stood aloof at the front door, boxes of pizza in his hands. For some reason, the sight of Cordelia and Gunn playing tug-o-war with his son miffed him.

"You're here!" Cordy smiled, all of her righteous fury evaporated in moments. "Finally!"

She retreated to the back closet, digging something out. He placed the pizza on the coffee table, and Fred was on it within moments.

Cordelia emerged, hiding something behind her back. "Guess what I've got."

"Cordy…" Angel sighed.

"C'mon, guess!"

"Is it bigger than a breadbox? Is it known for its work in the theater?"

"No and no."

"Is it going to make me want to kill you?" he asked, resigned.

"Probably," she beamed. "Wesley, get out of that office and join the world of the living!"

Angel cleared his throat.

"Well, mostly living," she amended.

She took a seat on the couch pulling what was behind her back—a relatively unassuming paper bag—onto her lap.

"Whatcha got for us?" Gunn asked, curiosity getting the best of him as he replaced Connor in his crib.

"Well I was thinking yesterday about how none of us are going home for Christmas, and how boring our tree would be. So I went out and picked up a few things to make it more homey. Lorne?"

He stepped forward, and she gave him something from the bag.

"Cordy…" he breathed. In his hand was a delicate Christmas ornament; a palm-sized flugelhorn with a green bow tied onto the bell.

One by one, she handed out their ornaments: for Gunn, a Hot Wheels truck on a string, the exact make and model of his own; for Wesley, a dapper, tweedy looking nutcracker; for Fred, a figurine of a fawn, it's neck arched and beautiful in a way that everyone agreed reminded them of the tiny Texan; for Connor, a small "Baby's First Christmas" slate with the date printed on the back, and for herself, ("Of course,"), a golden star.

Each put their ornament on the tree, admiring the effect against the generic silver and red baubles.

"Where's mine?" Angel asked, trying not to sound hurt as he strung Connor's ornament.

"Pffft. Like you get one. Please, where else would you be?"

And with that, she drew one last thing—a porcelain angel—out of the bag, and stood on her tiptoes to perch it on the tree's top.

"I looked all over town to find one that wasn't girly, cuz I knew you'd fuss," she said proudly. And he had to admit, it was pretty masculine, as far as cherubs went—its dark hair spiking out under his halo.

"It's almost like it's watchin' over us," Fred said. And Angel couldn't help but agree. Cordy'd been right. It was fitting, the way he—it—hovered over the other ornaments. Protecting them.

"Cordelia…" he murmured.

"D'you like it?"

"It's perfect," he croaked.

"Well, duh," she snorted. "It was my idea. Of course it's perfect." The 'you idiot' was silent but implied.

"Thank you," he said seriously, looking her straight in the eye.

"You're welc…" she got out before her eyes rolled into the back of her head. "Catch me!"

She needed have asked; Angel's arms were around her already, keeping her steady as she succumbed to the vision.

"Here, I've had the asperin ready all day," Wesley said, stumbling all over himself as he ran into his office. "I thought a week was a bit of a long stretch."

Angel stroked her hair gently as she flailed against him, motor control lost.

"Werewolves!" Cordy gasped, coming back to herself.

"Shh, here, drink," Wesley soothed, placing a glass of water in one hand and a handful of painkillers in the other as Angel held her up.

"Whoa, wait. Werewolves, plural?" Gunn asked.

"Like a pack of 'em," she confirmed, gulping down the water.

"They do that?"

She shrugged. "I'm just as lost as you are. I mean, granted, I don't always pay the strictest attention during Wesley's 'I Used to be a Watcher, I Know Things' beastie briefings, but since when do werewolves hunt in packs?"

"Maybe they didn't pay strict attention during their briefings," Wesley muttered. "But you're correct, I've never heard of such a phenomenon. What were they doing?"

She looked him straight in the eye. "Expanding the family."

* * *

A/N Bum bum bummmmmm.

Tomorrow: Werewolves!


	20. December 20th

Disclaimer: I own none of it.

* * *

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce hit the ground running.

Unfortunately, the ground was about three inches farther from the drain pipe than he'd been counting on, and the unconscious little girl in his arms pitched his weight in a way he hadn't anticipated; he stumbled, twisting an ankle.

"Blast!" he cursed, hobbling forward. "Cordelia, do try to keep up!"

"Speak for yourself, Gimpy, you're gonna slow us all down," she snapped, before turning to the twenty or so children following in her wake. "Come on, kids. I am the yellow brick road!"

"Keep it moving!" Gunn's voice echoed from somewhere behind them in the tunnel. "Angel can only hold 'em off so long!"

The whole thing had smelt of trap from the get go. While being the Powers That Be's bitch always required a certain amount of resignation when it came to walking into blatantly dangerous situations, this one had been particularly bad.

A warehouse in the bad side of town, a gaggle of children kept in cages while their kidnappers sat and waited for the full moon to rise… a little too convenient, too easy to ambush. It was raining, and dark, and the problem with ambushes is that even when you're expecting them, you don't know how they're going to spring until they've been sprung.

The kids were exactly where Cordy's vision had shown… but Wesley had found them too late. All of them were bleeding, broken, bitten at best and mauled at worst. None of them—Wesley hoped—were dead.

It was the kind of image he knew he'd never get out of his head—not if he lived for a thousand years. And so they'd gone to work on the cage locks, shell-shocked and trying not to vomit, saying soothing words to the crying children, already cursed.

That was when the Pack had attacked—when they were clumsy and distracted, blood simple and stupid with horror.

So they'd ran.

"It's times like these," Gunn huffed as he leapt down from the pipe that had given Wesley trouble, "that we need our own theme song. Little something to rally the troops. Anyone got a plan?"

"We can't outrun them much longer," Wesley said, nursing his ankle. "How much more time can Angel give us?"

Gunn shook his head. "I dunno, he was right behind me."

"If we can't run, then we hide," Cordelia decided. "But Angel knows these tunnels way better than I do."

"Good thing I'm here then," Angel said, dropping down to join them. "I was able to block off one of the grates, but it won't hold very long. We have to move, now."

-

The subway service tunnel was cramped and dark, having caved in twenty years before. But it was off the main sewer line, and relatively easy to fortify; Wesley couldn't complain.

Gunn, he noted, was wonderful with the children; a vestige, he supposed, of taking care of his sister. Cordelia surprised him by how easily they took to her—her practice with Connor had softened her. Which left Angel and himself, equally aloof, standing guard over the ones too weak to speak.

One of the boys tugged on his arm. "Is it true that he's an angel?" he asked, pointing at Angel.

Wesley glanced at Cordelia, and wondered what exactly it was she was telling these children. "What's your name?"

"Frank."

"Well, Frank, why don't we go ask him?"

He stood gingerly on his bad ankle; Frank took his hand wordlessly, and Wesley suddenly found he had something in his eye.

"Angel?" he said softly, pulling the vampire's attention away from checking the exits. "Frank here has a question for you."

Angel blinked. "Um, I—okay. Okay." He knelt down to eye level with the boy. "Hi."

"Hi. Are you really an angel?"

"I—no. It's just my name. And yours is… Frank?"

"That's not my real name, though," he told Angel seriously. "My real name's Francis. But it's girly."

Angel swallowed. "I don't think it is," he said after a moment. "I once had a… a very good friend named Francis. I miss him a lot."

"That's okay," Frank said gallantly. "I'll be your friend."

Angel's mouth twisted in the beginnings of a smile. "Thank you. I appreciate that."

There was a loud clanging from the other side of the hatch Angel had been investigating; he pulled Frank behind him, everyone on their guard in milliseconds.

The door swung open and in stepped Lilah Morgan, looking kempt and composed in the dusty darkness.

"Well this is cozy," she said after a moment.

Wesley's heart sank.

* * *

A/N Bum bum bummmmmmmm.

Tomorrow: aftermath.


	21. December 21st

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

* * *

Fred paced the lobby of the Hyperion, agitated.

She had a dilemma.

An enigma.

A quandary. A predicament. A conundrum.

A problem, even.

She, Winifred Burkle, needed to save Christmas.

This was not a situation in which she'd ever pictured herself.

(Well… at least not since she was seven.)

No one had been particularly willing to discuss the details of the previous night with her, but she'd been able to piece together a vague sequence of events. Apparently, the werewolf pack had been an asset of Wolfram & Hart's, and had fallen into Lilah's jurisdiction through some kind of creepy evil inter-office gift exchange. Deals had been struck and somehow, Angel and the others had managed to lose custody of the 24 fresh werewolf cubs, finding themselves completely outmatched when Lilah called in reinforcements.

In short, it had not been a good night, and an air of utter misery had settled over the entire Hyperion.

Even though the initial strum und drang of their circumstances had worn off, Fred was quite aware that if she didn't Do Something, and Fast! then Wesley would be grumpy for Christmas. And Cordy would be grumpy for Christmas, and so Charles would have to be grumpy as a show of loyalty. Angel, she understood, had been pretty much signed up to be grumpy for Christmas since last June. So unless she did something now, she and Lorne were going to have the carry the entire load of Christmas cheer for Connor all by themselves.

So it was up to her to save Christmas.

Fred plotted.

Her first plan had been to rescue the children from the depths of Wolfram & Hart herself. It lacked a certain amount of feasibility, she knew, but she couldn't bring herself to overrule it entirely. The thought of those kids separated from their families, probably getting brainwashed and then living a life of indentured servitude to the law firm… it made her sick inside.

But she knew her own limits, and so she tried to come up with a way that she could lighten the mood, seeing as she couldn't fix the problem.

She was gonna need some mistletoe.

-

Angel glared at the innocent-looking plant dangling above his head.

He loved his friends, and he wouldn't trade his life in L.A. for anything… but some days, he almost missed the lonely hours he spent brooding in that abandoned mansion. Just for a change of pace.

This was looking to be one of those days.

"Angel, what are you doing just standing there?" Cordelia asked, making her way towards Wesley's office. "We have work to do."

"Cordy, wait, no—"

"Gotcha!" Fred laughed merrily from her perch on the corner of Wesley's desk. For his part, Wesley looked like he was trying very hard to appear unamused.

"What?"

"Look up," Angel said tiredly.

"Fred!"

"I just thought we needed something to lift our spirits. And don't be upset at me—Wesley got Charles, after all."

"It was traumatizing, and we will never speak of it again," Gunn said from the far corner of the office.

Angel blustered. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Fred, but we have more important… there are plans that need… we can't just…"

"Can the two of you please get your kissing over with so we discuss our options?" Wesley demanded impatiently.

Cordelia shrugged. "I'd love to, Wesley, but I think Angel is too afraid of my cooties to—"

Except then Angel ruined her point entirely by leaning over, crushing his lips against hers for a couple of seconds, and pulling away again.

"Um."

She remembered, of all things, her and Xander's first kiss after spending the summer apart at the beginning of senior year. Not the kiss itself, but the part before it—how she'd tackled a vampire into Xander's stake, how it had dusted between them and she'd fallen down on top of him. This reminded her of that. Of the way one second everything had been solid beneath her, and the next_—wham_. Or maybe _boy-howdy_. This felt more like a _boy-howdy_.

"Um," she said again, struggling to bring her eyes back into focus. "Hi."

They were both uncomfortably aware of how fast her heart was beating, the pulse in her neck thrumming erratically. She braced herself against the doorframe.

"Sorry," Angel mumbled, abashed. Which was pretty normal Angel behavior—except for the part where he'd just kissed her, and therefore nothing in this situation could be construed as normal Angel behavior. "I just figured I might as well get it over with."

She snorted. "How romantic." And the sarcasm eased both their nerves, bringing them back into familiar territory.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said quickly, reaching out to touch her and then stopping himself, as if suddenly a friendly pat on the shoulder was a major invasion of her personal bubble. _'A bit late for that now, buddy.' _He cleared his throat and awkwardly continued, "Uh, I just meant the sooner we did it, the sooner everyone would stop staring at us, and the sooner we can get on with the meeting—"

"A capital idea, Angel. Let's do that," Wesley interrupted peevishly.

"Dork," Cordelia added under her breath. Tension broken, they took their seats.

As Wesley droned on about sewer access, however, Cordelia found her mind drifting.

This wasn't anything new, really. She suffered from what she had dubbed a "revolving crush" on Angel since she'd first laid eyes on him back in Sunnydale. Every now and then it would materialize out of the blue, turn her world upside down for a few weeks, and then vanish again. She was so used to it after her six year acquaintance with the vampire that she hardly paid it any attention anymore.

She sighed, resigned herself to just another one of those months, and tuned back in.

"…and besides, they have those vampire detectors installed, so any breach of the building itself is right out."

"Then we don't go to their main building," Cordy realized, an idea forming.

Gunn blinked at her. "You sound like a girl with a plan."

"Starting to. Look. We know Lilah got a hold of those kids because of Wolfram & Hart's fun-filled Secret Satan exchange, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Doesn't that mean they'll probably have stuff like that going down all over the city for the next few days?"

Wesley's eyes lit up. "I see. You're suggesting that instead of rescuing the children, we gain leverage by working horizontally and taking out a different part of their operation. Work a trade."

"It's how they got us the first time, isn't it? They go after what we want, then we go after them right back."

"I'm all for bringing the fight back to them," Gunn said carefully, "but how are we gonna figure out what stuff traces back to Wolfram & Hart? Not to mention, I ain't particularly keen on fightin' any more werewolves any time soon."

"Not all of the stuff they do is violence and rituals," Angel said quietly, breaking his silence. "Last year, around this time—" he winced as his partners sucked in a collective breath, "—well, there was this charity ball. They put it on through a front organization. They're probably doing one just like it this year."

Wesley adjusted his glasses, regaining his composure. "Then that's where we'll start. Take a look at their holdings, follow a paper trail… see if we can't find a connection."

"A connection with a handy Christmas party to sneak into," Cordelia added.

Wesley waved his hand and they retreated to their separate corners—he to his books, Cordy to her computer, and Gunn to the phone. Angel, knowing he wouldn't be welcome for a while, went to check on Connor. Fred trotted after him.

"Angel…" she started. He didn't stop walking. "Angel, hold on."

He paused at the top of the stairs.

"Why does everyone always go all quiet when someone brings up last year? What happened?"

Angel started walking again, but kept his pace slow so she could keep up. "I… Wesley wasn't always the boss, y'know. I used to… they trusted me and I took them for granted. Wolfram & Hart brought Darla back, and I… she drove me crazy. I fired the others to keep them safe, but they didn't… I couldn't…"

"Was it that bad?"

A muscle in Angel's jaw twitched. "Wesley got shot, and Cordelia wouldn't even let me see him. She kicked me out of the hospital."

"But that's so—"

"No, I deserved it."

Fred's mind raced. "Well… well you got Connor out of it all, didn't you?"

They had reached Angel's room. He opened the door quietly, looked in at his sleeping infant son. He nodded.

"Then maybe it all worked out for the best."

She rubbed his arm softly and then retreated back down the hallway.

"Yeah, maybe," he agreed quietly.

* * *

A/N Man. This was just gonna be a light fluffy mistletoe chapter, and then the angst just kind of pounced. I had nothing to do with it, I swear!

tomorrow: the charity ball.


	22. December 22nd

Disclaimer: I guess I own Sigreth demons? But other than that, not mine.

* * *

Gunn had to admit, he'd been pretty skeptical of Angel's hail mary charity ball scheme, but then again—it had been a good hunch.

He drummed his fingers against the dashboard.

"Stop that," Angel grumbled. "You're making me anxious."

Neither of them had been particularly pleased to be stuck with getaway detail, but the fact remained that there was no way Angel could simply walk into a Wolfram & Hart social function without _someone _noticing, and Gunn… well, he knew he wouldn't be able to stay stealthy if he got within strangling distance of a W&H employee.

He picked up his walkie talkie. "Unit One, this is Unit Two. Status?"

"We're approaching the front door now," Wesley replied, his voice fuzzy with static. "Why? Everything alright on your end?"

"Just bored, is all. And hey, while I have you—why is it that we're Unit Two and not you guys? I'm the one with the truck."

A buzz of muffled conversation. "Cordelia says it's because we're cuter."

Gunn rolled his eyes. "She would. A'ight, we're going silent. Good luck."

-

Wesley pocketed his walkie talkie with a sigh.

"Are we ready?"

Cordelia patted at his rented tux. "I guess. Remember that time we pretended to be police officers in order to sneak into that gladiator fight?"

Wesley smirked. "And you, with all your brilliant improv skills, could only come up with Detective Yelsew as a name for me. I remember."

"Well, I'm abandoning the stealth thing. If they're gonna know we're here, then they're gonna know—may as well be up front about it. Ready? Let's go."

And she was already arguing with the bouncer by the time he caught up, panting and panicked.

"…I'm sorry, but there's no one by that name on the list. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."

Cordelia raised one eyebrow in a look Wesley still feared to this day. "Maybe you didn't hear me correctly. Cordelia _Chase_—you know, like the bank? And if my father finds out about this—"

"Can I see some ID?"

She handed over her driver's license without a word, and tried very hard to keep her scowl on as the bouncer's eyes widened.

"Oh, um, I—sorry! It must have been a… a computer error. Please, go right in, Miss Chase."

She snatched back her license, grabbed Wesley by the hand and dragged him in behind her before he could make a fuss.

"That was some very fast thinking," Wesley acknowledged as he adjusted his glasses.

"Please. I used to pull that trick all the time when I first moved here in order to get into the good restaurants."

"Very fast," he continued, "but very reckless. They know we're here now."

Cordelia shook her head. "No, they don't. You think any of the important people are gonna go ask the bouncer 'hey, did anyone named Cordelia come through here?' We left Angel behind in order to fly under the radar. As long as he stays put, the radar's still above us."

He frowned at her. She gave him her best innocent smile, and they stepped together into the main ballroom. Cordelia gasped.

Wesley couldn't help but agree. The place was packed and beautiful, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and waiters circulating around the room with plates of appetizers.

"Now remember, we're looking for Gavin Park. He's the fellow who—"

"The one with the designer suit and really nice shoes who tried to evict us. I _remember, _Wesley, chill."

They took a moment to scope out the ballroom, but it was useless. There were simply too many people to make heads of tails of what shady dealings could be going on under the guise of polite conversation.

"You know," Cordelia said thoughtfully, "we might do a better job of casing the joint if we moved around the room a bit. Stuck together in the crowd. Me facing one way, you facing the other…"

His mouth twitched. "Cordelia, would you care to dance?"

She broke into a wide grin. "Thought you'd never ask."

-

"There, is that him?"

"Where?"

"Over there, by the hors d'oeuvres."

Wesley spun and dipped her to get a good look.

"That's him. Let's move."

"Gavin! Darling!" Cordelia cried obnoxiously. She threw her arm around him in a seemingly casual embrace and led him to a more secluded corner of the opulent room. "If you guessed that it's a very sharp knife you're feeling against the back of your neck," she whispered, "you guessed right."

"Let's get down to business, Mr. Park," Wesley said, standing tall and glaring. "What are you doing here tonight?"

"It's not your place to interfere!" Gavin hissed.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Have you _met _us? We interfere for a living. Now be a good little flunky and tell us why we're here."

He raised an eyebrow. "You mean you don't know?" And then he whimpered in pain, a bloody gash on his cheek where there hadn't been one before.

"Thank you, Cordelia. You were saying?"

"I could scream—we have a security force, they could get rid of you in moments—"

"Do you honestly think, Mr. Park, that we would bother to approach you if we hadn't already taken care of such things?"

Behind Gavin's back, Cordy gave Wesley an impressed look.

Gavin examined Wesley's face closely; the brit did not budge.

"… the crystals in the chandeliers. They're Sigreth eggs."

"Of course," Wesley breathed. "They'd need the warm bodies, and the noise."

"It'll be hatching time within the hour at this rate. I was supposed to call it a night early, and then lock the other guests in. A trick we learned from your vampire frien—AH!"

"You don't get to talk about that night," Cordelia told him firmly, her knife nowhere Wesley could see. "Not ever."

"Have it your way," Gavin chuckled, laughing through his evident pain. His breath came in sharp wheezes. "Good luck getting to the chandeliers. Those are fifty foot ceilings."

Wesley scoffed. "Removing the eggs is hardly the only solution."

And with that, he strolled casually behind the buffet table and pulled the nearest fire alarm.

Within seconds, the room was doused with water as the sprinklers engaged. All was pandemonium as people screamed, practically climbing over each other to get out of the ballroom and away from the wet.

"Wesley," Cordelia forced out in a voice that was not quite calm, "I appreciate that you just simultaneously brought down the temperature and stopped the guest list from becoming a menu. But couldn't you have warned me before you ruined my one good dress?"

"My apologies." He looked down at his rented tux. "Oh, damn. I'm going to lose my deposit."

"Can you let me go now?" Gavin whined.

Wesley pulled out his walkie talkie. "Unit Two, this is Unit One. Looks like we won't be needing a getaway car so much as your help with…" he glanced first at the chandeliers and then at Gavin, "…waste disposal."

"Copy that, Unit One. On our way."

"Boys and their toys," Cordelia muttered, tossing her head back to get her damp hair out of her eyes. "If you start giving each other code names, I swear to god I'm quitting."

"Now, Mr. Park," Wesley said as if he hadn't heard her, "I'd like to negotiate the terms of your release. Wolfram & Hart has something of immense value to us." He took Cordelia's knife and started polishing it on his ruined tux sleeve. "Let's hope that you're worth just as much to them…"

* * *

A/N It didn't occur to me until I was proofreading how much I may have been subconsciously influenced by Shindig. Oops?

Tomorrow: Angel has a Very Important Conversation. Of sorts.


	23. December 23rd

Disclaimer: Faith, like the others, does not belong to me.

* * *

The buzz of the opening door was so loud and so grating that Angel could not help but wince. He shifted in his uncomfortable plastic chair, trying to find the sweet spot that didn't exist, and picked up his phone.

"Hey, Chief. Nice hat."

Angel winced and pulled the fuzzy santa cap off his head. "It was Fred's idea. She thought it would cheer you up. I, um, I brought you cookies."

He waved a tin in front of the glass pane.

Faith laughed. "You baked me cookies?"

"I—um—no. Brought. Not… not baked."

But she was already too far gone to listen, the mental image of Angel in a frilly apron and wearing a fish-shaped oven mitt too much for her to handle. She burst into fresh peals of laughter.

"Oh… oh man, I needed that."

He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm five by five, Angel."

The frown persisted.

"I… it's been a bit rough holding it all back lately."

"How do you mean?"

Faith examined her fingernails. "Just… I dunno. There's a gym in here, and they make us go outside, but it's not… I need more than that. I feel like I'm wasting away. And I'm constantly revved up from all this extra juice, but I've got nowhere to go with it."

Angel considered this. He didn't often allow himself to dwell on the powers of Slayers… it brought back too much longing and grief. But now Faith needed him; he cast his mind back to the long hours he'd spent sparring with Buffy, their bizarre courting ritual.

And now that he thought about it, it had been different. Especially now that he had something to compare it to. He remembered the feel of Buffy's body against his, how tight and corded her muscles were…like there was a freight train just beneath her skin. She housed so much power in that petite frame—if her body were proportionate to her supernatural strength, she'd be a leviathan, twice his size or more.

He mulled over that power; how just being near her had sent his fight or flight reflex into overdrive—a product of their duel nature, each a predator and each prey in their own right. He thought about how it would feel to have that power, to feel it festering under your skin, atrophying from disuse. He knew from experience how maddening that sensation was.

He swallowed. "I guess what you need to do is… well, it's kind of like what I do about my thirst. You channel all that extra energy you have into controlling it. Let it feed back on itself."

It was an answer he hadn't realized he'd had until he'd said it, but the second it left his mouth he knew it to be true.

"I'm listening."

"It's… we're not like other people, Faith. We have power. And that makes everything harder. It's a constant struggle to… to stay connected. To remember that we've been granted this power for a reason. That there's a greater good and we should serve it. That's why I've surrounded myself with…" he steeled himself to say 'friends' but knew he couldn't, "…with the people I have. Their humanity keeps me grounded. They aren't like you and me. They fight the good fight because they choose to. They get stronger through sheer force of will and their _need _to do this."

He swelled with pride at the thought of Wesley and Gunn, working away tirelessly to fight vampires just because they knew that if they didn't, who would? He compared his training sessions with Buffy—the feeling that he was wrestling with a livewire—to those he now shared with Cordelia. She was getting better; stronger every day. But her strength was natural; her arms were made of flesh and not steel. And sparring with someone so soft, so fragile, made him constantly aware of his own strength. Every time she bruised him it was a victory for her—and every time he didn't bruise her, it was a victory for him.

"Makes sense in theory," Faith said slowly, "but it's not like I've got friends like yours. Especially not in here. I dunno if you noticed, but this ain't exactly Girl Scouts."

"You can use that too. That's also important. Remembering that the most dangerous minds can be housed in the most vulnerable bodies. No matter which side of the fight they're on."

A ghost of a smile. "I guess. But let's forget the heavy world-savey stuff for a while. How's Connor? He talkin' yet?"

Angel smiled. "Not yet."

And as they started chatting about nothing, both their spirits buoyed by the presence of the other, he thought about how that was one thing Faith shared in common with her namesake. Sometimes it was a struggle, and it was never consistent… but faith was always there when he went looking.

* * *

A/N Writing their conversation was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Jeez.

Tomorrow: Christmas Eve!


	24. December 24th

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

* * *

Cordelia rapped her nails on her desk, and glanced at the clock for the hundredth time.

It was 11:33 PM on Christmas Eve, and Angel was hiding in his room.

He'd been acting peevish and short-tempered since he'd returned from visiting Faith the day before. She had hoped that he'd just spank his inner moppet on his own time, but he hadn't returned to the lobby after he put Connor to bed, which was a sure sign he was brooding.

Cordelia loathed brooding.

She'd given him time, and space, and plenty of other things she didn't particularly care about unless they were put together in a continuum and then tried to kill her. And he had chosen not to deal with it himself. In her opinion, that was more than ample warning that he'd have to deal with her eventually.

And besides; he knew perfectly well that whenever he went to his room to 'be alone,' she ultimately ended up 'being alone' with him. It was just the way things worked in their relationship.

She knocked on his door and opened it before he could reply.

"You wanna talk about it?"

She wasn't entirely sure what 'it' was, but hey. He didn't know that.

"No."

"You should."

"No, I shouldn't."

"Angel…"

He wouldn't look at her. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. I just want it to go away."

She rolled her eyes. It's not like she expected miracles. She had taught herself to be fearless when it came to her emotions, because lying to yourself, she figured, was just a shitty way to live. Angel wasn't like that, though. He never knew quite what he was feeling, or what to call it. He just knew how to stuff it down and pretend it wasn't there. As if it were easier not to feel at all.

"That is exactly your problem."

He blinked at her. "Huh?"

"You don't… think about your feelings. You don't question them or give names to them. And maybe in the past that wasn't exactly a bad thing, but you don't have to repress anymore."

"_Huh?_"

She fought to keep from rolling her eyes again. "Let's just start at the beginning. Tell me about Buffy."

He blustered. "This isn't—"

"Please. She's gotta be in there somewhere. Throw me a bone."

"It's just… thinking about her, and Christmas… it brings up the last one I spent with her."

"Oh yeah," she recalled, "they told me about that. How it snowed."

"It was the first time the Powers intervened in my life. I mean, aside from bringing me back from the hell dimension. Assuming that was them."

"That was their big Sign? They made it snow for you?"

He finally looked up at her. "I was trying to kill myself. They stopped the sunrise."

Cordy sucked in a breath. Xander had failed to include that in his overview. Granted, by that time most of their conversations consisted of barbed insults and barely contained rage, but still.

They were both quiet for awhile.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Cordy finally said softly. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

"Why does it hurt?"

"I dunno."

"Think about it."

He thought about it. "I guess I just still don't understand why they chose me."

"Why wouldn't they? Vampire with a soul? You don't get too many of those."

"You don't understand. That night with Buffy… I was like a caged animal. I couldn't think. All I could do was lash out."

"You're not that guy anymore, Angel."

"But I am. What's changed, really?"

"Everything! You're a father—"

"That just makes it worse. That I'm not just doing this for me anymore, I have to do it for him. And if I thought I were getting better, then maybe… but I still have just as much capacity to hurt. I proved that last year. And don't say it doesn't matter, because it keeps coming up."

"I wasn't going to. Of course it matters."

"And then I go talk to Faith about… about redemption, and control, and I feel like the world's biggest fraud."

Trust Angel to bring it back to his sordid past. Understanding the hidden meanings of Angel-speak was a skill that came with time; she prided herself on it. But she still felt like she was stabbing in the dark.

"So this is a guilt thing," she interpreted.

"I… that night… I hit Buffy. I wrestled her to the ground. And I asked her if… if I was a thing worth saving. If I was a righteous man. And her answer was that I wasn't. She wanted me to stay because she loved me, and not… not because I'm good. I wasn't. I'm not."

"Yeah, well, I know you don't like to hear it, Angel, but Buffy's a moron."

"No she's—"

"You're an even bigger moron, so it fits, but you can't tell me it's not true. And you know what? Maybe she was right then. I didn't know you. But I know you _now. _And that guy? The guy you are? He's pretty damn righteous."

"But it's all just a sham."

"Really? You're gonna tell me that if tomorrow Wesley found out that the shanshu prophecy was a lie, and you could fight the good fight for a thousand lifetimes and never get rewarded… you'd just give up? Because you're only pretending to be good?"

"Of course not. But I don't deserve…"

"That's a stupid word. The guilt thing, it doesn't become you. Yes, you've hurt people. You've hurt me. But you've also saved people. Including, again, me. Every day."

He looked at his hands, then back up at her. "But it's so hard."

"That doesn't sound like guilt. That sounds like fear."

"I…"

"No, no. This is good. This is constructive. Another reason it hurts: you're scared."

"Yes."

"What are you scared of?"

"You."

She quirked an eyebrow. "I'm gonna go ahead and not be offended by that, because this is share time, but choose your next words carefully."

"It's not _just _you. It's everyone. Fred and Wes and Gunn. Because everyone always looks to me to fix things, and make it better, and… I can try, but I can't solve every little problem that comes up. I want to. I want to more than anything, to be that person. To know what to do. But I don't! It's not that I don't have all the answers, it's that I have none of them. And I try and I try, but it is so hard to live up to this… this _myth_ everyone wants me to be."

"You don't have to."

"Don't I? You trusted me. You and Wesley. The way you two used to look at me… like I was your shining knight. I loved that. And then I…"

"I'm not excusing what you did, but you aren't the only one to blame. You shouldn't have to be pedestal guy. You're allowed to make mistakes."

"No I'm _not! _Not ever! Don't you see that? I have a pattern. Every time I make a mistake, I lose the people closest to me. I lost Buffy, and I lost you—"

"And yet here I am."

"But that's not a risk I can take. I can't… I can't lose Connor. And after everything I've done, I just… I need to be perfect."

"He's not a _test_, Angel. He's a person."

"Of course. A human child is born of two vampires—something which has never occurred before, and is supposed to be impossible—and it's not a test? I know better than to believe that. So I need you to look up to me. All of you. It's the only way I know I'm alright."

She considered his words. "It seems to me that the real issue is that, no matter how you feel or who you think you are, you refuse to accept that people can see past the 'grrr' face and what it represents. Just because _you _can't. It's been your hangup ever since you were whammied by the truth stick. But that's bullshit."

"I can't pretend to be something I'm not."

"But you're not a monster! Your past is not a cross to bear, okay? You can't stay up into all hours of the night wondering 'what if.' Life is hard, terrible things happen. But we do our best, and we keep doing it. We're only human."

He gave her a look.

"Well, okay, not yet. But you _will _be. And that's the important thing here. You can't fight fate, and you can't survive alone. You spent most of your life trying to do both. But haven't you noticed by now that the second you gave up and let people in, things got better?"

"I… yeah."

She studied him a moment. "There's one more."

"One more?"

"One more reason it hurts."

Angel slumped. "I miss Doyle."

Her eyes softened. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Me, too." And with that, she got up and dusted herself off. "Alright then."

Angel blinked. "Wait. That's it?"

"Yup. I mean, I'm good. Are you?"

He stared at her. "For now. Cordelia, when… how did you get to know me so well?"

She scoffed. "Well, I am extraordinary. And—do you want me to be honest here?"

"Could I stop you?"

"Snarky. Now I'm sure you're feeling better." She retreated to the hallway, but stopped in the door frame. "How did I get to know you so well? Come on, Angel. All this time, while you've been busy saving the world? I've been busy saving _you._"

_I love you, _he thought. He didn't say it.

"I'm giving you five minutes to get your pale vampiric ass downstairs. It's Christmas, damn it, and we're gonna _have _a Christmas."

-

Minutes later, Angel trotted down the stairs, adjusting his shirt sleeves. "Did I miss it? Is it Christmas?"

"Not yet," Wesley assured him.

"'And they say his heart grew three sizes that day,'" Cordy quoted, locking eyes with Angel for a moment. She ducked under the front desk, retrieving a stack of red plastic cups and a bottle of sparkling cider. "Sorry about the drinks; I would've gone for champagne but apparently 'twenty-one in two weeks' and 'actually twenty-one' aren't the same thing to liquor store clerks."

As she spoke, the chimes on the grandfather clock behind her began to sound the midnight hour. She passed around the cups, making sure everyone had one. "We need a toast," she decided. "Something Christmasy."

"'Every time bell rings, an angel gets its wings?'" Fred contributed with a giggle.

"Veto," Angel said quickly.

"'It's not the getting, it's not the giving, it's the loving,'" Gunn suggested.

"You stole that from Garfield," Cordy admonished him.

"I wouldn't touch him with a 39 and a half foot pole?" Lorne joked, grinning at Angel.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Come on guys; please?" she asked. "Anyone?"

Wesley stood up and held out his cup. "God bless us," he intoned solemnly. "Every one."

Quietly they all tapped cups and, echoing the sentiment, welcomed Christmas Day.

Then, from the roof, came the unmistakable sound of an arising clatter.

* * *

A/N I think this may be my favorite conversation between them I've done. Woo!

Tomorrow: "There is a Santa Claus. ... he doesn't traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disembowel children. But otherwise..." - Anya


	25. December 25th

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

* * *

To be honest, Fred had always been a little scared of Santa Claus.

It had all started when she was three years old and her parents had taken her to the mall to sit on Santa's lap and get her picture taken.

_("Mamma? Santa is big."_

"_It's okay, sugar. Look. He's not as big as Daddy."_

"_But… he's furry. Is… is Santa a bear?"_

"_No, no! He's a good furry. Like… Elmo."_

_A concerned glance. "I think Santa is bear.")_

She would gladly have sat on the lap of every Mall Santa in America if it meant being spared the scene in front of her.

The man-creature—_Santa, _she reminded herself—was hunched over Connor's bassinet, the tiny baby cradled in his arms. He was covered head to toe in pelts, colored not the cheerful cherry red she was used to, but stained the sick off-brown of dried blood. His lengthy beard was matted and equally stained, and his hooked nose was just long and misshapen enough to make him appear cruelly inhuman. Which, she recalled, he was.

"You've been very naughty this year, Angel," said Santa Claus.

Angel was too shell-shocked to respond. Wesley and Gunn, both armed with swords, stepped forward.

"Put the baby down," Charles said slowly.

"The miracle child is mine, Charles Gunn. Don't interfere unless you want _coal in your stocking_."

The way he said it led Fred to believe he actually meant something more like _"before I eviscerate you and wear your entrails as a scarf."_

"How d'you know my name?"

"He's Santa," Fred said breathlessly, "he knows everybody's name."

"I thought we were past the whole Everyone-Wants-To-Kidnap-The-Miracle-Child stage!" Cordy hissed desperately at Wesley.

He scowled. "Well, it is the season for miracle children, I suppose."

Angel finally seemed to come back to himself. "Give me back my son," he snarled, his voice as feral a growl as was possible without putting on his game face.

"Oh, well since you asked nicely…" Santa said mockingly.

Lorne was aghast. "Santa is sarcastic? I mean, evil is one thing. But can't he just be silently menacing evil? This is insane."

Santa lowered his head, placing his nose in the crook between Connor's neck and shoulder, and breathed deeply. "I've never encountered a tastier morsel. I can make it a quick death, if that puts you at ease."

"Not particularly," said Cordelia, grip tightening on her axe.

No one had eyes sharp enough to quite catch what happened next. Angel was a blur, tackling the intruder and wrenching Connor from his arms.

"How dare you—"

And then everyone was in motion at once, hacking and slicing at the Yuletide demon. Fred and Lorne stood back and watched the mayhem. Watched as a wicked horn burst from the top of his head, bloody red but for a snow white tip.

"Christ!" Cordy yelped, diving out of the way.

Santa Claus roared with fury. Wesley swung wildly with his sword, managing to shave off some fur from his jacket but leaving the menace unscathed. Gunn bellowed and launched at the demon from behind, clinging his arms around his neck furiously. Santa bucked, nearly taking one of Gunn's eyes out with his horn, while Gunn tried to do… well, anything.

"Cordy, axe!" Angel ordered. She tossed it to him and he went for the legs, doing his best to stay clear of Gunn.

With a final mighty tremor, he shook Gunn off, the younger man toppling into Angel and sending them both slamming into the wall.

He looked around, spotting Connor on Angel's bed. He lunged.

"No!" Wesley shouted, thrusting his sword forward with all of his strength.

All was deadly silent.

Wesley's sword was stuck cleanly through Santa's neck, not so much beheading as bisecting him. The wizened old demon seemed immediately to crystallize. Instead of dusting, which Fred had half-expected, he turned to snow and melted in on himself, becoming nothing more than a pile of wet slush on Angel's carpet.

Connor wailed.

"Shhh, shhh," Angel soothed, holding his infant son close. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You're safe now."

"How did he even get in here?" Gunn wondered. "Ain't like we have a chimney."

"It's my fault," said Angel. Cordelia opened her mouth to retort, but he talked over her. "No, I mean, really. I invited him in."

"He needs an invitation? Like a vampire?"

Angel looked forlornly at the plate of cookies and glass of milk that had been placed on his bedside table. "I wasn't thinking. I just wanted… I wanted him to have a normal Christmas…"

"And now he can," Wesley said determinedly, wiping his sword off on Angel's comforter.

The vampire sat on the bed. "I… I understand if you guys don't want to stay over tonight after that. You can go home."

Cordelia snorted. "Right. Like I'm gonna leave you alone now, Mr. I-Have-To-Be-Perfect. I only just stopped you from brooding. I can't leave you unsupervised so you can start again."

She climbed onto the bed with him and leaned back resolutely on his pillows. A tension in his shoulders lightened; he looked up at the others.

Gunn shrugged. "Looks like you're stuck with us."

"You can stay in the room next to mine, Charles," Fred offered in a way she hoped sounded more polite and not desperate. He grinned.

"Wesley?"

The formed Watcher waved his sword around a bit. "I believe I already cast my vote."

"I… thank you," Angel said, because there wasn't anything else. "For everything."

He really should work harder on getting down that grateful smile, he decided.

-

Several hours later, recharged from sleep and giddy with excitement, Fred ran into Gunn's room and started bouncing on his bed.

"Get up! Get up, Charles!"

"Whazzit?" he mumbled in confused amusement, voice sleep-rough. "What're you doing?"

She beamed at him. "It's Christmas!"

"I know. We killed Santa Claus, remember?" he said fuzzily. And then he was fully awake with a shock. "Oh god, there aren't more demons, are there? I refuse to cope with demons in my PJs. Lemme get some clothes on, then I can start coping."

"No, no, no more demons. Just—it's Christmas!" she said again, bouncing harder. "Get up!"

He smiled at her excitement, and glanced at his alarm clock. "Fred, it's 6:30."

"I know; get up!" she ordered, standing and trying to drag him from the bed. He refused to move, instead pulling her down onto the bed next to him.

"How old are you—five? Lie down and go back to sleep for three more hours. _Then _we'll get up."

She was going to protest, but he had already rolled over and drifted back to sleep. Curling in closer to his warmth, she closed her eyes.

-

The two of them were woken up by light streaming in from the hallway.

"Gunn, you up yet? We—oh. Hi Fred." Cordelia quirked an eyebrow, but other wise said nothing.

Gunn sat up. "Sup?"

"You guys should come downstairs. I think we're gonna do the present thing soon, and Angel made three different kinds of pancakes."

"For real?" Fred asked, her face lighting up.

Cordy grinned. "It's deliciously redundant."

Fred and Gunn stared at her, then at each other, and bolted out of the bed within seconds.

-

The team of Angel Investigations sat sprawled on the floor of the Hyperion, surrounded by empty boxes and torn wrapping paper.

"Look what Angel drew me," Cordy enthused, practically shoving the artist's pad in front of Wesley's face.

Covering the page was a neatly penciled sketch of Cordy looking through files, one hand hovering near her mouth as she chewed on her thumbnail, her face set in an almost comical look of concentration.

"My," Wesley whistled, "Angel's skills never cease to impress. How is it you attract such artistic people to you?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Oh, you know, Xander Harris and his sonnets, Angel and his drawings…"

"Xander never wrote any sonnets, he just threatened to," Cordy muttered, torn between being annoyed and mortified. "And I don't know; maybe it's my stunning poetic gifts."

"Cordelia," Wesley said carefully, "I'm very fond of you, but you haven't a poetic bone in your body."

Annoyance and mortification quickly yielded to offense. "I am an _actress,_ Wesley. I am a student of the human condition with more appreciation for aesthetics in my pinky than you have in the whole of your tiny, British body."

He raised an eyebrow.

"…Does it have to be a bone?" she finally asked. "Can't it be a…soft tissue, or cartilage maybe?"

"I'm afraid not."

Cordy shook her head dramatically. "Fine then," she said, "I, Cordelia Chase, am a philistine, with no appreciation for art or culture, and clearly I do not deserve the friendship of such a talented person as Angel."

Wesley tried very hard not to smirk. "That sounds about right."

"Yeah well…maybe I can be his Muse."

"Which reminds me," said Wesley, digging into his back pocket, "I have something for you myself."

He placed a crisp, freshly minted $100 bill into her hand.

"Wes, what…?"

"To replace the dress I ruined the other day. I'd have bought you one, but I fear I don't have Angel's taste…"

"You're the best!" she squealed happily, wrapping him in a warm hug.

"Cordelia…" Angel started from across the room, studying Connor's gift from her pensively, "What is it?"

She rolled her eyes. "What's it _look _like?"

"It's…" He held up the small yarn construct gingerly, "…very soft?" He fingered the yarn, nodding sagely.

"Okay, so it doesn't look quite like a bootie, exactly," Cordelia admitted breezily. "But I'm new to the whole knitting thing, and it's not like Connor will know the difference. Also, there's an embarrassingly ugly scarf waiting for you in that box."

He removed the misshapen, garishly red-and-green… thing… from its package with a mixture of utter amusement and barely suppressed horror.

"Wow, Cordy, I… um…"

"It was gonna be a sweater, but once I found out from the booties how hard shapes are, I figured I'd keep it simple."

"Don't sweat it, Angel. Coulda been worse; she made me a hat." Gunn didn't seem all that disappointed, though, as he shoved the yellow-and-orange ear-flapped monstrosity down over his head.

Wesley caught a fair amount of ribbing for the spatula set he gave Angel, as well as his blustering attempts to explain how he had gotten them because they were perfectly balanced for throwing. Fred's gifts to them all, personalized gadgets that she'd built herself, were met with rounds of applause and awed thanks.

And all in all, it was a fairly normal Christmas… as these things go.

* * *

A/N Couldn't help myself from sneaking in a secret Jayne hat...

Tomorrow: kye-rumption, or something like it.


	26. December 26th

Disclaimer: I don't own the Beatles, on top of everything else.

* * *

It wasn't that Lorne didn't enjoy staying at the Hyperion and playing Detective White Hat for the time being; he did.

But in his heart of hearts he was still The Host, and sometimes—most of the time—he really missed reading people.

He hadn't opened Caritas just because his empathic abilities were his only marketable skill (though he'd be lying if he said that weren't a contributing factor). He liked people… and more importantly, he liked helping people. Seeing how they felt, what they needed, and helping them get set on their path… it made him feel good. In a way nothing in Pylea ever had.

So he complained about how no one at Angel Investigations save Fred could carry a tune in a bucket; he play begged them all not to sing around him, said he saw too much of the insides of their heads as it was.

But it was all just that: play.

And on days like this, he wouldn't trade his anagogic gifts for anything. Because while the rest of the gang was forced to hear Cordy's off-key rendition of Baby You Can Drive My Car as she tried to rock Connor to sleep while he cried—and yeah, he heard that part, too—he also heard the stuff they didn't.

It was nice, being one of the few beings in this town that could hear not just what people said, but what they meant.

Cordelia _said_, "Working for peanuts is all very fine; but I can show you a better time. Baby you can drive my car! Yes I'm gonna be a star…"

But she _meant_ something a lot more like this:

"_Hey there, baby boy. Yeah, you like that? Of course you do. Listen to those lungs you've got. You're just like me._

"_People like us, Connor—we like noise. It reminds us that there's something outside our own heads. Makes us feel like a part of the world. And I'm glad you're like that, because your Daddy… well, most days, I'm pretty sure he wants nothing else but to stay inside that thick skull of his. Which is ridiculous._

"_Admittedly, Angel can be… pretty colorful. But that's not really him. Just like big scary broody vampire guy isn't him either. Not really. Or at least, not anymore. He's lived a long time, your dad. He's had to be a lot of different people._

"_Pretty much the opposite of me, actually. I used to put a lot of effort into consistency. The only way to stay on top in high school is to maintain a What You See Is What You Get policy—even if that pretty much ensures that what you get isn't a very good person. But you don't have to worry about that just yet. And if genetics are anything to go by, you're doomed to be a social outcast anyway._

"_But don't panic; you'll grow out of it. I did. And your dad helped a lot with that. I've changed a lot since I met him, and that's a good thing. I like the person I am now. _

"_I kind of didn't before. _

"_I'd like to think that I've helped him as much as he helped me. Because when I help him… like I did last night? Well, it's measurable. But it's not so much like that, the other way around. I don't think he has any idea what he's done for me. How he's taught me that it's important not just to do good, but to be good. It's kind of my philosophy these days._

"_But I think… I think maybe he's grown as much as I have. Or he's started to. Maybe your daddy is learning to like himself a little bit, too._

"_Because he sure as hell didn't before. Not at all._

"_But now? Now he's like this… Oreo, or something, that's been all mashed up. The parts of him that are Angel, but also the parts of him that are Angelus, and Liam… you can see all the divides and differences, but there are bits and pieces of the cream and cookie all stuck together. You can't separate them; they're just this one big squishy mess. And I know he'd get terribly confused and probably offended if he ever found out I'd made that analogy, but that's fine. It's more fun to tease him when he's all scandalized and bewildered._

"_I love it when he's like that. When all the extremes of who he is and who he's been come together and he can be normal again, even if only for a few moments. It's so… it's like this wonderful gift. Because I know he only ever shows that part of himself to a few people. I'm one of them. But it also breaks my heart, because in those moments—like every time he looks at you, Connor… I can see the man he was supposed to be."_

And that, he thought, was true kye-rumption. Two great heroes recognizing their mutual fate.

Because they aren't soul mates. Not in the classic sense, where there's one person in the world who completes you, one perfect other half with whom you're destined to spend the rest of your life.

Lorne wished it were that easy.

Kye-rumption was… different. Not so much about finding a soul mate as making one. Earning each other instead of being thrown together by fate. Which was hard work, of course, but that was just one more thing Lorne loved about Earth—the conviction than nothing worth having came easy.

And how he loved watching them try. Angel was moody and Cordelia temperamental, but rarely at the same time. And on the few occasions when they did fight? Everyone could tell that it was because they cared enough—they trusted each other enough—to not hold back.

What surprised him was how obvious they were about it. When Angel wouldn't listen to anyone else, he'd listen to Cordy; when she smiled at him, he blazed with her reflected light. And as for her… well, Lorne had just heard it out of her own mouth. Angel was the one person Cordelia would do anything for—including grow up.

"What are you staring at?" Cordelia demanded, startling him out of his reverie.

"Just you, gorgeous. You're really good with the Munchkin, you know."

She narrowed her eyes. "Did you just read me?"

"Um…"

"Lorne!"

"Okay, yes. Maybe a little."

She put Connor down gently. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Well, tell me my future. What's my path?"

For a moment, he considered actually telling her. But that conversation: _"Oh hey, I know that you're completely unaware of it because you can be really oblivious when you want to be, but you're totally in love with Angel," _just wasn't one he was prepared to have yet.

So he decided to be cryptic. "Just keep doing what you're doing, Sugarplum," he assured her. "Just keep doing what you're doing."

* * *

A/N Oh, yeah. I'm super subtle and stuff.

Tomorrow: Cordelia buys that dress.


	27. December 27th

Disclaimer: I do not own them; please don't sue me.

* * *

"_I can't, I have to take care of Connor."_

"_I can't, there's a demon on a rampage and it's my job to kill it."_

"_I can't, the sun's out."_

"_You can't, it's not in the budget."_

"_You can't, you're still ill from that vision."_

"_Look out, there's a vampire behind you!"_

In their three years of working together, Angel had developed nearly 70 tried and true excuses not to go shopping with Cordelia.

Somehow, today not a one of them had worked.

He wasn't sure why it was such torture. He didn't mind shopping _for _Cordelia (as long as it was clothes and there was no Christmas pressure, anyway.) He knew what she liked and he knew what looked good and he knew, most of all, what he wanted to see her in. It was almost like buying a gift for himself, really.

And he valued her company over… well, pretty much anyone else's, ever, if he were being honest with himself.

But put her within a 500-yard radius of an upscale boutique and she turned into…

"Oh, my god. Those shoes with _that _skirt? Who did they hire to dress these mannequins, a colorblind rhesus monkey?"

Well. Someone she hadn't otherwise been in a long time.

"Cordelia," he murmured uncomfortably, "isn't this place maybe a… a little out of our price range?"

"What? Is there something wrong with living in the lap of luxury?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

He struggled to find words. "But, it's… not your lap."

"But it's a _nice _lap!" she protested. "And besides. I'm only following Wesley's orders. He told me to replace the dress he ruined, and that's what I'm doing. And I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna do it at the Bargain Bin."

They had been searching for hours. She was torn, apparently, between taking the term 'replace' literally and trying to find a similar dress, or going for something completely different.

Not for the first time, Angel wished that the (goddamned stupid piece of shit) cell phone in his pocket would go off, and there would be a demon to slay or at the very least research to do and he would have an excuse for them to go home.

And then he saw it.

"What, um. What about this one?" he asked, holding the dress out for her to see.

Everything about her lit up. "Good eye, Angel," she acknowledged, examining it critically.

He waited patiently for the other shoe to drop and for her to compliment his gay man's taste. But she didn't; she merely took the hanger from his hands and walked determinedly to the changing area. He trotted after her like a puppy dog, unable to keep from thinking that something in the atmosphere had changed.

The clerk in back eyed him suspiciously when he reached the threshold between the store proper and the small back hallway, and he stopped as abruptly as if he'd been uninvited.

"Right. I'm just… I'll wait here."

And he waited. But no one had warned him that the dressing room walls were thinner than paper, and before he understood what was going on he found himself completely arrested by the sounds of zippers and fabric and skin.

He mentally cursed his vampire senses, and the architect who designed the store, and then stopped thinking altogether when he was struck, quite thoroughly, by the inescapable fact that she wasn't just trying on a dress—she was trying on a dress _for him._

(And then being dead didn't seem so bad after all, because he didn't miss the sweaty palms or the thudding heart or the hitched breath. Being spared these obvious giveaways was a blessing in disguise.)

"Well? How do I look?"

They were both very careful about where they stood, both of them hyperaware of the fact that the bored clerk was still paying attention to them, and that if she noticed that Angel wasn't reflected in any of the dozen mirrors Cordelia was now examining herself in, they would have a rather large problem on their hands.

"…Angel?"

Surrounded by images of her from every angle, he found he didn't have words.

"You… it… um?" he said, gesticulating helplessly.

And then she broke into a grin; not the satisfied smirk of shopping!Cordelia, but the genuine, easy smile he'd come to know so well: his Cordy.

"Perfect. I was going for 'gorgeous,' but 'speechless' will do just fine."

* * *

A/N So sweet, it could cause cavities at ten paces. Oh, fluff.

Tomorrow: um... well. I haven't really decided. Any suggestions or requests? We're in the final haul, people!


	28. December 28th

Disclaimer: Take no offense and hire no lawyers! Certain lines in this chapter are direct quotations from the episodes Billy and Five By Five. I especially do not own those.

* * *

"Why are you making me do this?" Cordelia whined.

On the other side of the practice mat, Angel pinched the bridge of his nose, lowering his practice sword. "Because you _asked _me, Cordelia. You wanted to learn how to defend yourself."

"Not _that,_" she specified, rolling her eyes. She touched the tip of her own sword to the ground and slouched on it. "I know that. And I'm grateful. But why are we doing this? We've been at it for hours. This is no longer learning self-defense. This is the art of being sweaty."

"But it's constructive!" Angel argued. "See, with the… me having a sword, and you having a sword. And the practicing."

"Yeah, but when practicing consists of us making like we're trying to kill each other, it kind of defeats the purpose when I _actually want to kill you._"

He studied her a moment. "Alright, I'll make a deal with you. If you can get past me—off the mat and onto the stairs—with your sword still in hand, lesson's over. If not, I get to keep you here for another hour."

She pouted. "Why are you being so difficult?"

"_I'm _being difficult?! You're impossible!"

"Fine, whatever," she sighed, lifting her sword off the ground.

He beamed at her, sinking back into a ready stance. She fought hard against smiling back. It would not do.

"You realize that this isn't even a little bit fair," she pointed out. "Seeing as you're the lord and master of all things weapony and I'm just a poor, pathetic novice."

"Yeah, but see, if I called you that, you'd hit me."

"Way to miss the point, Angel."

"Fine then, I'll fight left-handed," he shrugged, switching his grip.

"How Princess Bride of you."

"How what?"

"Nothing, never mind," she said quickly. Because the last thing she needed was Angel obsessing over a children's movie about honor and friendship and true love.

"You ready?"

She pouted, sighed, rolled her eyes: nothing. "Fine. I guess." She stepped into stance and raised her sword. "Okay. I'm ready."

"Good," he said shortly.

And then did nothing.

Cordy shifted her weight, disconcerted. Angel merely stared at her, utterly still. Supernaturally motionless. It wasn't like he had to breathe.

For half a minute, she waited for him to make the first move; he didn't twitch. She shifted again, trying to throw off the wiggins that was building between her shoulders and under her skin. "Angel?"

No response. Not even a blink. Did he want her to attack? She thought back to their last training session (_"You make it too easy. Going off all half-cocked because you're upset, I mean. You need to calm down. Be more like Buffy."_)

She stood her ground. "Angel, are you conscious?"

Still nothing.

"You're making me nervous."

He didn't move. She knew something was wrong when _that_ sentence got no response. She relaxed out of her fighting stance with exasperation and stalked over to him. "What the hell do you think you're—"

His sword flashed up in one lightning movement, caught her own, and sent it flying out of her hands. She glared furiously as it hit the ground outside the training area with a clatter. Cordelia winced and squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to go through his customary blade-at-her-throat do-you-yield routine and subsequent lecture on paying attention to her opponent.

It never came.

… he was too busy laughing at her.

She peeked one eye open cautiously.

"The look on your face!" he forced out, dropping his sword to hold his ribs and point at her. "Oh, that was so worth it."

Cordelia stared at him, arms at her hips. "You. Suck."

"Patience is a virtue," he chuckled, smiling at her.

The smile made her forget their last lesson, and he was still laughing as she tackled him.

He rolled with her momentum, careful to keep them out of the reach of his dropped sword. He ended up on top of her, her legs pinned beneath his own. For a second, she thought he was about to kiss her.

In that second, she wouldn't have minded.

"That wasn't very sportsmanlike of you," he chided, bringing them both back to themselves.

"Oh, like your statue routine was?" she countered, wiggling out from beneath him. She retrieved her sword and gave it a little flourish. "I deserve a second try; you cheated."

He got to his feet and quirked an eyebrow with an easy dignity she envied. Fred could say whatever she wanted; Cordelia knew she was no warrior. Not like Angel. She realized he was talking and tuned back in just in time to hear "…sure you want to be disarmed twice in five minutes?"

"Just see if you can do that again," she said, sounding more confident than she felt (which was a bit of a specialty of hers.) "Now pick up your sword." She waved her own in the general direction of his for emphasis.

"Okay…" he said easily. And then he was in motion, blade flashing with the reflections of the Christmas lights no one had bothered to take down. It was obvious to both of them that if he made any serious effort, she wouldn't last five seconds. As it was, it took everything she had to block his advances, keep her balance, and hang on to her sword.

There was no sound in the room but the clang of metal on metal, the shuffle of their feet against the mat, and her exerted breathing, but her head was filled with his voice. (_"A good defense is about moving the line of attack. When the bad guy comes at you, you want to step off the line—like this—creating a new one. Every time you do, your opponent will be forced to adjust. Always make the other guy work."_)

Refusing to fight him on his own terms, she spun lithely away from the reach of his blade before he could get too close, always trying to loop back around to the stairwell. But he was always in step with her, blocking her progress at every turn. He wasn't smiling, but she could tell from the lack of tension between his eyes (_"You can always tell when he's happy. His scowl? A little less scowl-y"_) that he was proud of her progress.

She backpedaled, waited until he followed, and then sprang sideways, making a mad dash for the stairs. He caught her and engaged her again before she could make it.

Over and over in endless circles around the mat: him on the offensive, her barely holding her defense. Mentally, she was running through every lesson he'd ever taught her, looking for anything that would give her the upper hand.

(_"You know, Cordelia, handling a lethal weapon is a _little _different from shaking a pom-pom."_)

And **duh,** it wasn't like he was ever going to let her past him. So she'd have to get through him instead. And it wasn't Angel who'd taught her how to do that.

She hadn't done a forward hand spring in years, let alone one-armed, but desperate times… (_"If you can get past me—off the mat and onto the stairs—with your sword still in hand, lesson's over."_)

She grinned briefly and started to move backwards. Angel raised an eyebrow, but maintained his casual attack. The far edge of the mat inched closer… closer… she tossed her sword into her left hand and he backed off, which was all the opening she needed.

"Ready? Okay!" She gathered herself and launched forward, crossing the distance between them in two long strides. Tensing everything, she flipped on her right hand—up and over the swing of his blade. Clear of danger but not yet safe, she rolled out, tucked under, and went again, two feet away from glorious freedom.

For an instant, she was beautifully airborne, form-perfect thanks to years of built muscle memory.

And then the vision hit, and the triumph and satisfaction of the moment were lost by her plummeting gracelessly to the floor, a tangle of convulsing limbs.

"Cordy!"

He gathered her up in his arms, but she was already gasping for breath and blinking blearily up at him. They were lucky; it was a light one, as these things went.

"How'd I do?" she asked breathlessly.

He swallowed. "I think you need to work on sticking the dismount."

And she smiled weakly at this shared moment of humanity before plunging into a description of what she'd seen.

* * *

A/N Hee. This was fun to write. I'm starting to get a little sad at the idea of not spending all my days with them... but then, I am certainly starting to run out of ideas.

Tomorrow: demons are slain.


	29. December 29th

Disclaimer: I own the... alien... demon... things? Nothing else, though.

* * *

It was imperceptible to most, but Gunn could tell: the tide of the battle was turning. It wouldn't be long before he and the others succeeded in vanquishing the weird lizardy alienish all-too-powerful something-or-others from across time, space and the 13th dimension from the Earth.

Of course to Gunn, _all_ creatures that he fought with Angel Investigations that weren't actually vampires were considered, in the back of his mind, weird lizardy alienish all-too-powerful something-or-others from across time, space and the 13th dimension. No matter how remotely they resembled lizards.

"Oh my god," Cordelia scoffed, ducking for cover, "is that seriously a ray gun? These people are very sad."

In this case, however, the default description was remarkably apt.

There were few things that tested how much you trusted your Seer more than when she insisted, quite vehemently, that tomorrow there was going to be an alien invasion in Redondo Beach. But that was the blessing and the curse of fighting the occult in L.A.: you had to expect anything, because even the most outlandish could be explained away by movie shoots and publicity stunts. And the fewer people who noticed things were more para than normal… well, the more daring the Forces of Evil became.

Gunn wasn't sure if they were aliens that were masquerading as demons, demons that looked like aliens, or people who had been so sad and desperate for power that they'd ended up looking like demony aliens. He didn't much care which was true. The thing that mattered was that they had the tech to go with the look, and someone—_three guesses who, first two don't count, _he thought, Lilah Morgan's smirking face floating behind his eyes—had given them financial backing.

They'd find out soon enough. The tide was turning, after all. He whipped out his walkie talkie.

"Unit One? This is Unit Two. Where you at?"

"In position," Wesley responded. "Fred and I are still trying to determine what kind of cannon this is."

"You mean aside from a really big one?" Cordy asked.

Gunn shot her a look. "Do you really have to know what _kind _it is in order to, y'know. Blow it up or whatever?"

"Well we're trying to avoid that scenario," Fred explained, "because it blowin' up kind of ensures our blowin' up, and I'd really rather that not happen."

"Agreed," Gunn said, grinning in spite of himself.

"So we're trying to disarm it, but that requires understanding it," Wesley finished. "Unfortunately, applying two human minds—however brilliant—to what is clearly alien technology is… well. Rather like trying to pick a lock with a wet noodle."

Explosions went off around the lifeguard chair Gunn and Cordelia were ducking behind; they cringed in unison.

"Well, how long is that gonna take?"

"Hard to say, Charles. We gotta calculate the wavelength of the dampening field, and then—"

"Could you give the Hooked on Phonics version for the techno-babble impaired?" Cordy interrupted.

A pause. "Ten more minutes."

She nodded. "You get all that, Angel?"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," he muttered, his voice coming through the line for the first time. "But can we focus for a second on how exactly I've worked my way down to Unit _Three? _I keep getting demoted!"

"Quit bitching and get moving, Distraction Boy. You're on."

-

Angel flipped off his walkie talkie and turned to Lorne, who was cowering in a corner behind him.

"Are you sure you can't read these things, Lorne? It would make our jobs a lot easier."

"Not unless they sing, babycakes. And something tells me I don't want to hear what's going on up in those big scaly heads of theirs, anyway."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Nothing? You didn't get _anything _off their auras?"

"One thing—I got weirded out."

"Right." Angel frowned. "Well, I guess I'm on."

He leapt out from under the pier they'd been hiding and into action.

Game face on, roaring, he dodged and weaved through the crowd, breaking bones and trying to get to the raised platform upon which their leader was standing.

"Wha—vampire? But you died! WE KILLED YOU, I saw it happen!" it insisted with an unearthly accent.

He tackled it. "If you say so." The hoards were upon him now, trying to pull him off, trying to do anything. "I'm just the distraction, by the way," he added cheerfully.

Somewhere behind him, Cordelia and Gunn were cutting a wide swath into the demon army, yelling obscenities.

The battled raged on.

-

"This is Unit One," Wesley said tersely, his voice barely discernable over the sounds of clanging weapons. "You're good to go."

Angel took note of his surroundings. They had thinned the crowd to a mere dozen or so flunkies and their leader—and sustained minimal injuries themselves.

"It's over," he said loudly, catching the attention of everyone on the moonlit beach.

"Not until you've slain the last of us, vampire!"

"Okay," he said with a shrug.

It was short work, after that.

Wesley emerged from the large doom-machine behind the leader's back and pointed a crossbow at him. "Yield. You are alone, you are powerless, and you cannot hope to defeat us. Yield."

The demon merely laughed.

Cordelia leaned over to whisper to Gunn. "Did the alien demon just say what I think he said?"

"I dunno. All I caught was 'bwahahahahaha.'"

"That's what I'm talking about," she specified with a sigh. "How woefully passé."

"Could we maybe talk less about how clichéd he is and more about why he's laughing like he's winning?" Angel hissed.

"Oh, because you whining like a baby man about being Unit Three was super productive."

"Goodbye," said the demon. He touched a button on the band at his wrist, and promptly disappeared.

"What?!"

Angel clamped his hand over Cordelia's mouth. "Everyone hold very still."

They held still.

"Invisibility's a nice trick, I'll admit," Angel called out, walking slowly along the beach. "But I have a word of advice."

He lashed out suddenly, his hand wrapping around the neck of something that didn't appear to exist. The demon shimmered back into view.

"Next time you want to escape from a vampire? Hold your breath."

The alien whimpered.

"Okay. Now? You're gonna tell me about Wolfram & Hart."

* * *

A/N Oh, how I suck at giant fight scenes.

Tomorrow: Gunn and Fred bond.


	30. December 30th

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

* * *

Fred stretched out on the couch in the middle of the lobby, pressing into Gunn just a little. He smiled, and took a sip of his coffee. His arm was stretched over the back of the sofa; not quite around her, but she could feel it against her shoulders.

It was comfortable.

Fred grinned. "Charles?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever miss normal nighttime things?"

He choked on his coffee. "Um, what?"

"I mean, y'know. _Not _huntin' demons."

He settled back down into the couch. "Oh. Well, for me that pretty much is normal nighttime stuff. I've been goin' after vamps since I was a teenager."

"You and the rest of the world!" Cordy called from her desk, clearly unimpressed.

Gunn rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, Miss The-Hellmouth-Ate-My-Childhood, my heart bleeds for you. Didn't you live in a mansion?"

"And yet here I am, slumming it with you people," she said with a good-natured roll of her eyes. "Don't ask me; I don't know where I went wrong, either. And while we're at it, don't mock the Scooby lifestyle. Privileged suburban upbringing aside? Hanging out with Buffy Summers is the mystical equivalent of sticking a sign permanently to your forehead that says 'Please Try To Kill Me, I Like It.' I am paying for that mistake to this day."

"I guess I just don't understand it, is all," Fred shrugged, contemplative.

"What bit?"

"Like… like those guys yesterday, for example. I understand why people would sell their souls if they thought they had nothin' left. But I don't understand how anyone could ever think they had nothin' in the first place."

Gunn shifted again, starting to get uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. "Maybe they just… felt like they needed something to fight for."

"And they decided that becoming paid spacemen for Wolfram & Hart was the way to go? Doesn't make any kind of sense. If I'm gonna fight for something, it would have to be special. Like how Angel does."

Gunn looked down at her. "Oh yeah? You wouldn't sell your soul for, say… a lifetime supply of pancakes?"

She laughed and hit him on the arm. "Charles, be serious!"

"I am. I'm always serious about pancakes. Imagine it, Fred. I mean, you? You could eat four pancakes a day, easy. Maybe five, knowing it's a lifetime supply and all. So we'll make that… thirty pancakes a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for at least another, what? Sixty years?" He trailed off, trusting her to do the calculations.

"Ninety-three thousand, six hundred," Fred breathed after a moment. She paused to think about it. "My life seems suddenly long, measured in pancakes."

"As it should," Gunn said decisively.

* * *

A/N That is quite possibly the most pathetically short chapter I have ever posted, but try as I might, I absolutely could not make this scene longer. Arrrgh. My apologies.

Tomorrow: New Years Eve. many pages.


	31. December 31st

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

* * *

"What are you doing here?"

Angel and Cordelia stared at each other. "It's New Years Eve," Angel said. "Don't you have some… party to go to, or something?"

"I'm the babysitter. Don't you have a Krepslach demon you should be slaying?"

"I… I figured I would stay home so you could go out. Wesley said he and Gunn could handle it, so he gave me the night off."

"And I figured I would stay home so _you _could go out, and then you'd all be back before midnight."

"Fred and Lorne?"

"He took her out for a night on the town; they left a half an hour ago."

It was 10:30 PM on New Years Eve, and the two of them were facing off in the Hyperion lobby as Dick Clark chattered endlessly on the television in Wesley's office. They shared an awkward, wincing smile at their Gift of the Magi moment.

"Go get dressed," Angel ordered.

She quirked an eyebrow. "Perhaps you didn't notice, but I _am _dressed."

"No, I mean…" he rubbed a hand through his hair, mussing the spikes. "Go put on something pretty."

Cordelia looked down at her jeans and burgundy cashmere sweater, and then looked back up at him, clearly about to protest.

"Not that you don't look pretty in what you're wearing now!" he said quickly. "But, um… just… go home and, and put on something special," he begged.

"Angel…"

"No, I mean it. I'm gonna go check on Connor, and then I have to go out for a few minutes, but… meet me back here in a half hour, okay?"

"Okay…" she started uneasily, but he was already halfway up the stairs. She shrugged and went to find her car.

-

"No, no, no…" Cordelia grumbled, tossing dress after dress onto her bed with every exclamation. "God, why does everything I own _suck?_"

Her closet read like a yearbook of failed relationships. The prom dress Xander got her as an apology, the wardrobe Angel spent six months of savings to replace as an apology, the dress she bought with Wesley's gift money he'd given her as an apology… it was all incredibly depressing.

"Dennis, help!" she whined.

The dress she'd bought four days before jerked suddenly and fell off the bed. She stared at it a moment.

She'd written it off as a Wesley dress, but remembering the look on Angel's face when she'd tried it on for him…

-

Angel blew the dust off a couple of old wine glasses he'd found in the cellar and set them next to the (admittedly, semi-cheap) bottle of champagne he'd put on ice. The snacks were out, the TV was on, and Cordy…

"Nice spread."

Cordy was behind him.

"Cordelia! You look…"

"I know," she said with a self-satisfied smirk, sticking her finger in the bean dip he'd scrounged up from the depths of the mini fridge. "Angel, this is…" and then she looked at him properly for the first time. Her jaw dropped.

"Is that YOURS?"

He swallowed. "Uh. The vest is; the tie isn't."

In his haste, he'd forgotten that he didn't own a suit, let alone a tux. So he'd dug around his closet, eventually finding a slate gray vest which he did not remember buying (and had therefore probably been a gag gift from either Buffy or Cordelia at some point). He'd thrown it on over what he'd already been wearing and hoped for the best. The tie was a panicked, last minute addition—Wesley always kept a spare in his desk drawer in case of clients. He braced himself, waiting for Cordelia's verdict.

"You look so classy! You should wear ties more often. And—is that champagne?"

"Yes?"

"You're going to let me drink?" She narrowed her eyes, suspicious. "You _never _let me drink."

"Well, your birthday's really soon, after all, and it's a special occasion…"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me."

He sputtered. "What? No! I, I just… I wanted—"

"I _know, _you dork. Relax." She started pulling at the champagne cork, sticking her tongue out with exertion.

"That's for midnight," Angel protested weakly as she succeeded in popping it.

She grinned at him, splashing champagne into each glass. "It's already 2004 on the east coast." And with that, she took a long sip.

"You could have at least let me do a toast," he grumbled, a little put out.

"There's plenty of time for that later. Oh, I love this song!" she smiled, her attention caught by some singer on the TV. She grabbed at his arm and pulled him in. "Dance with me."

And in the time that it took for the words to travel from his brain to his mouth, his insistent "I don't dance" managed to transform itself into a could-be-classified-as-eager "Yeah, okay."

So he spun her in time to the music and dipped her when it ended. Hand hovering over where he knew her tattoo to be, he gently bent her backward, bracing her hip against his. She laughed, their eyes met, and—

The door slammed open with a loud report. Connor woke to the noise and started screaming his head off, which only made Wesley and Gunn argue louder in order to be heard.

"…had to come up with a Plan B!" Gunn was saying, gesticulating wildly.

"Oh, what: 'If the spell doesn't immediately work, jump out of hiding and start hacking at the highly volatile demon with my hubcap axe?' Did you come up with that all on your own?"

"Better than letting the thing get away again! Angel, back me up here."

Angel was completely at a loss. Thirty seconds before, he'd had Cordelia in his arms and they were alone in the hotel with a whole year of possibilities ahead of them. But now, all of a sudden, everyone was looking to him for answers.

"Um?"

Luckily, Cordy was there to diffuse the situation. "Girls, girls, you're both beautiful," she soothed, picking up Connor and placing him in Angel's arms. "Angel, please deal with your son."

Happy to have an excuse to get as far away from Cordelia Chase and his feelings as possible, he took the baby and ran.

-

Angel jogged back down the stairs and was surprised to see Cordy, alone, sprawled on the couch, full champagne glass in hand.

"That was fast," he commented, sitting down next to her. "I mean, I had to run the gauntlet of six verses of 'I Am Henry the Eighth I Am,' getting his bottle temperature just right, and a bedtime story, but you had… them."

She shrugged. "They were pretty easy to get rid of once I had the vision."

"Cordelia—"

She gave him a small, secret smile. "I faked it. They're gonna be so pissed at me later, but… I kind of liked it, just the two of us."

He sighed. "I'm sorry about how this all turned out. I was trying to make it up to you for not telling you earlier that you had the night off."

"I'll put it on your tab," she said with a wink, but her hand was on his thigh and they both knew she meant that there was nowhere else she'd rather be.

"They're counting down."

And together, they watched as the ball dropped. The crowd went wild as Auld Lang Syne started to play, and Cordelia was looking at Angel with an expression he'd never seen before.

"Do you want to do the kissing thing?"

"I… um. Do _you _want to?"

She shrugged, as if this were easy or normal. "We kissed last week. No one died."

"I—okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

He started to put a hand to her face but thought better of it; it was just a New Year's kiss, after all, between friends. It was hard to tell who made first contact—only that at one moment they were staring wide-eyed at each other, and the next, their eyes were closed, and he was kissing her.

It only lasted a second or so. Exactly the kind of non-event that a New Year's kiss with a friend was supposed to be. But Angel couldn't deny that a part of him… a big part… a most of him part… really hadn't wanted to pull away. And that should have made him panic, but for reasons he had no desire to understand, it didn't.

"There now. Was that so bad?"

And in a week and a half it would be her birthday, and there would be one last vision and one more kiss between them—not that he would exactly be present for it. And then everything would change, forever, though neither of them knew it.

But for the time being, her hand was on his thigh and his lips were still warm from hers, and a week and a half seemed as good as an eternity.

* * *

Dedicated to all my readers, but especially to rapidreject, lyin', and Liana-chan, for being consistent and lovely reviewers.

* * *

A/N And so it ends. This has been really fun--if not, at times, very challenging--for me to write, and my experience with it has really brought me back to fanfiction. So, like. Thanks for taking the trip with me.

And if you want to hit that little button below and leave a comment, or hit my name up top and read my other work? Well, that's cool too.

Thank you for reading.


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